


What Kind of Hero

by PrayingForIrrelevance



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-15 00:30:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 43,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19284385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrayingForIrrelevance/pseuds/PrayingForIrrelevance
Summary: You ever get so mad about a show you write an entire novel in response?  Usually I prefer to ignore series like this, but for whatever reason, I kept being reminded of its existence, and almost every time I learned something new that made it sound even worse than it did before.  So despite my efforts to avoid it, it rattled around in my head over and over again until this story came back in response.  It was written in anger and could not be called a happy or a pleasant story.  I’ve written this down and posted it online mainly to get it out of my head, where it will probably instantly be ignored and forgotten.  I pray that the series that inspired it will share the same fate, so I will never have to hear or think about it ever again.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are no archive warnings because I'm not sure how strictly the Rape/Non-Con one applies, or how graphic the violence needs to be. There is definitely violence, murder, major character death, and at least some sort of sexual assault.  
> I'd rather not name the show that inspired this because I can't imagine anything good will come of it, plus, linking what is essentially a hatefic of sorts to where the fandom can see it seems pretty rude to me.

Voices.

That was the first thing Kaitlynn was aware of:  voices in the distance.  She couldn't tell if they were shouting or talking, let alone what they were saying, only that there were voices, and they were coming closer.

Following the voices, she became aware of other sensations.  The ground beneath her was rough and hard, cutting into her skin, and hot, hotter even then the sun beating down on her face.  That was what drove her to get up off the ground and look around her.

She had been lying on a raised dais decorated with carvings of feathers in the middle of crumbling and overgrown ruins.  Nothing about it was familiar.  This wasn't where she had been.

And just where was that, exactly?  What had she been doing until just now?  Her mind was slow to answer, and before it could piece together her last memory, the owners of the voices pushed their way through the underbrush, only to stop and stare at her in amazement.

It was a group of three:  two men and one woman, all adults, dressed in tunics, robes, and cloaks, with swords and shields.  Members of the local SCA?  Or LARPers?  Before she could find out, the shock of the men turned quickly to delight, and with a cry the tallest of them, a handsome, muscularly built man with brown hair, stepped up to kneel before her and grab her hand.

"I knew it!  The Hero of Destiny!"

"What?"  She tugged ineffectually at his grip on her hand and looked to his companions for help.  It was the woman who spoke up next, although not to offer help.

"Are you sure, Roman?  She's dressed like an ogre."  Glaring in suspicion and disapproval, she looked Kaitlynn up and down.

Kaitlynn glanced at her own clothes:  t-shirt, jean shorts, sandals.  Perfectly normal attire for a teenage girl spending a day outside in the middle of summer.  It had been too hot to wear anything else. 

"No, she must be the one.  The prophesies said that Nehame would reappear in one of her temples in a column of light, just like the light we saw.  It led us to right to this temple, and look, here she is, appearing just as we arrived.  This is our destiny!"

Kaitlynn was still trying to get him to let go of her hand.  "I'm sorry, but I don't really know what you're talking abou--"

"You can't just take some tramp that's decided to set up camp in some old ruins and decide she's Nehame reborn!  That's blasphemy!"

"Wait, I don't live here, I--"

"Perhaps if she could offer some sort of demonstration for us?  Some kind of proof?"  It was the second man who spoke up, stepping forward a little.  His build was slimmer than Roman's, with blond hair.

"Proof?  Proof of what?"

"Proof that you are the hero that was prophesied.  Nehame is able to shield people from danger, heal wounds, and judge the hearts of men."

Seeing these two men staring at her so expectantly (with the woman glaring daggers in the back) she could only spread out her hands in helplessness.  "I'm sorry, but I can't do any of those things.  I have no idea what you're talking about.  I don't even know where I am.  One minute I was riding home with my friends, and the next I woke up here."  It had been evening, the end of a long day.  What had happened next?  She vaguely remembered a bright light.  From another car?

"I told you, she's just a tramp!"

"How did she get here, then?"  Roman asked.  "These ruins are in the middle of a swamp overrun with shades and guarded by an ogre.  How could an ordinary person make it here when even we had trouble?"

"Whether she's the savior we've been waiting for or not isn't something we can decide for ourselves," added the blond.  "That should be the Church's duty."

Roman nodded in agreement and held his hand out toward Kaitlynn.  "Well, my lady?  Will you accompany us back to the village to speak to the priest?  I swear to you:  we will keep you safe on our journey."

Kaitlynn shrugged.  "It's not like I have anywhere else to be."  Ignoring his outstretched hand, she hopped off the dais and joined their party.

The woman, she soon learned, was called Rialla, while the blond man was Shen.  She was in a country called Isven, which, despite having a typically American grasp of geography, she was pretty sure did not exist anywhere on Earth.  In the past few years, monstrous beings they called shades had started appearing and attacking people.  This had happened before, far in the past.  The shades were a sign that the world was being overrun with darkness and sin, and were a warning of the coming of Amaut, who would swallow the world.  Back then, the world had been saved from destruction by the arrival of an angelic figure, a being that descended from their heavenly realm to save all humanity.    That was the savior Nehame they spoke of.  He had been accompanied by three mortal companions on his journey.  Roman claimed to descend from one of them.  Now that shades had started reappearing, it seemed that these three set out to mimic those companions by seeking the return of their prophesied hero, although at the moment they were simply traveling from village to village to help people in need.  Most of the known ancient churches had been overtaken by monsters far more dangerous than a mere ogre.

"Is that normal?" she asked.  "For so many churches to be abandoned?  It takes a long time to build something like that out of stone, doesn't it?  And why is this one in the middle of a swamp?"  Her last question was voiced in exasperation, as her foot sunk into mud.  She almost lost her sandal pulling it out.

"The rumor is that this temple is cursed," Rialla said.  "They moved the village to higher ground to escape the miasma that settled around the temple."

"This region used to be much more prosperous, and the swamp was drained to make room to build the temple" Shen added.  "But times changed.  The region lost its importance, the swamp returned, and the village moved west.  The same has happened to many others.  Disaster destroyed one, and the church decided to build a new one elsewhere, or the land changed too much to stay with the old temple.  It has been a thousand years, after all.

"Anyway, according to the legends," Shen continued, "the hero Nehame first appeared in one of these ancient temples, although the knowledge of which one has been lost.  I would not have expected Nehame's glorious return to be here.  We only happened to come by this one because of the ogre.  It had been attacking people from a nearby village, and we were hired to exterminate it.  We only found you by chance."

"Ogre?" she asked, but Roman spoke over her.

"Not chance, but fate, Shen," he exclaimed.  He suddenly stepped closer to Kaitlynn.  "She appeared in this temple, on this day, so we could find her.  Don't you understand?  God chose us as companions for His messenger, to help her restore peace and order to the land!"

"Er...right."  Kaitlynn dodged around him and moved to put Shen between her and Roman.  Turning to Shen, she asked, "do you think he's right?  That I'm this destined hero?"

"Well...your dress is certainly bizarre, and story does suggest you came from another realm," he said slowly, "but I can't imagine the savior would arrive here by accident.  And your outfit...to be honest, it's not what anyone would expect from a holy warrior."

Kaitlynn wasn't stupid; she didn't think he meant her clothes were too plain for so important a figure.  Roman was outwardly polite and gentlemanly, but he kept staring at her with a look that made her feel naked.  It was unfair.  Yes, her clothes showed more skin, but only arms and legs.  Neither her shirt nor her shorts were especially clingy or designed with seduction in mind.  Rialla's dress was lowcut and clingy, showing off her figure and her cleavage.  If one had to compare the two, Kaitlynn would say Rialla was wearing the sluttier outfit.  But her companions seemed to view things differently.

She didn't say any of this out loud.  There was no point.  Instead she asked what the heavenly savior was supposed to look like.

He shrugged.  "There aren't any written descriptions, as far as I know.  The savior is usually only represented by a white feather in artwork.”

“Not always,” Roman said.  “Look here.”  He pointed to a surviving piece of wall.

  Where he pointed Kaitlynn could make out a haloed figure holding a feather.  The rest of the wall in front of the figure had been too damaged to make anything other than the long snout of some creature.  Personally, Kaitlynn didn’t see much of a resemblance between the carving and herself.  She couldn’t even tell if the figure was male or female.

"The only way for the savior to prove their experience is to perform miracles," Rialla added, "which you don't seem to be able to do."

"Give her a chance, Rialla!  Her powers may yet awaken.  She probably just needs something to trigger it."  Roman sounded more hopeful than confident.

"Something to trigger it?  Like an attack by shades, perhaps?"

"Yes, exactly!"

"Well," she smiled, "we're in luck!"  And she pointed off to their right, where four shades were swiftly approaching the group.

The three actual fighters rushed out to attack the oncoming monsters, the men with swords, Rialla with her staff, leaving Kaitlynn behind to stare in amazement.  "Shade" was an apt, if unimaginative, name, for the monsters looked much like shadows given form.  They had vaguely humanoid forms, but it was hard to make out any details beyond that.  She couldn't tell if they were wearing clothes, or had hair, or even if they were large or small.  Just looking at them made her feel cross-eyed.  They looked insubstantial, as if the light and shadows in the background just happened to combine to resemble a figure much closer, but when her companions swung their weapons, they connected with solid forms.

There were four of the shades.  With Shen, Rialla, and Roman each taking on one, that left one free.  It soon found Kaitlynn and charged straight for her.

No one had given her a weapon, so she was left with only her fists.  That women's self-defense class she'd taken last spring didn't quite prepare her for grappling with a literal monster, and despite all her kicking and punching, she was soon brought to the ground, screaming for help.

The shade was on top of her, pinning her to the ground--and suddenly it wasn't, dissipating into a cloud of smoke and a small shower of pebbles, revealing the point of Roman's sword, now pointed at her.  She stared back up at him. 

"Thanks."

She accepted his outstretched hand and stood up.  Feeling something roll off her stomach as she got up, she caught it with her free hand:  a coin.

Rialla scoffed.  "Some hero."

Kaitlynn ignored her.  "It dropped a coin?"

"Yes, they do that."  Roman let go of her hand, only to clap her on her shoulder in what was supposed to be a friendly gesture.  "The church fathers say shades collect coins because they are a symbol of people's greed."

"Huh."  Unsure of what to do with it, she ended up slipping it into her pocket.

 

*** * ***

The rest of the journey back was largely uneventful.  A few more shades attacked and were quickly dispatched.  Kaitlynn remained as useless in a fight as the first time.  Roman's interest in her continued to make her uncomfortable.  Her sandals were not suited for what was basically hiking in the woods, and branches scratched at her arms and legs, so that by the time they finally reached the village later that evening she was more than ready to go lie down for the day.  Besides, it had been the end of a full day to her when she woke up here.

Unfortunately, there was still more left to do in the village, for the crowd that came out to meet the returning heroes was excited and joyous, ready to throw a feast in their honor, which of course the gracious warriors could not refuse, and Kaitlynn must come along with them after Roman introduced her as the "Hero of Destiny."  The villagers appeared to accept Roman's claim well enough, although they gave her puzzled looks, and the priest promised to write to the church elders about her.

Tomorrow.  He would write to the elders tomorrow.  They would get Kaitlynn new clothes and shoes tomorrow.  Even a bed for her was put off until later, probably also until tomorrow, to judge by how the party was going.  It had been hours so far, or at least felt like it.  The sun had set completely, and people had moved from just feasting and drinking to dancing and drinking (and still feasting, for there was plenty of food to go around).  The food was good, but Kaitlynn tried to avoid the alcohol.  It's not that she was against alcohol, but her experience with it was still rather sadly limited and getting drunk in a strange place surrounded by strange people sounded like a very bad idea.

No one else seemed to understand her choice, unfortunately.  Several people kept trying to force drinks on her, until at last Shen flat-out asked her why she wasn't drinking.

"Why don't you drink?  Their stuff is good.  They'll think you're being rude if you don't at least try it!"

"I don't really drink, sorry."

He stared back at her, eyes wide.  "You don't drink?  Why not?"

"I just don't."

"That's ridiculous!  Everybody drinks!  Look, it's a party, you should relax and have some fun!"  And he shoved a drink into her hand.

Kaitlynn looked down at it.  It was golden in color, and slightly fizzy.  It had been a very long day for her, and she was tired, both physically and mentally.  Maybe he was right; she'd spent most of the party sitting in a corner, trying to avoid people's stares.  And to be honest, she was pretty curious about the drink everyone was enjoying.  So, she gave in and took a sip.  It was surprisingly sweet, and very easy to drink.  She continued to sip on her drink as Shen smiled approvingly and went back into the crowd.

Her drink looked like beer, so she assumed it would be about as strong.  She was very wrong.  The drink so popular with the villagers was a well-known concoction, a strong flavored liquor mixed with the naturally carbonated water from a nearby spring. 

Before long she was feeling pleasantly warm, and some stranger helpfully topped off her glass.  A few sips more and she was bold enough to try joining in the dancing.  A few more drinks (she lost track), and emboldened by encouragement from onlookers, she started dancing in the styles she knew from her own world, not realizing that it was only men cheering her on.

Her memory started to break down soon and became spotty soon after.  At some point, Kaitlynn went over the line from pleasantly drunk to feeling horribly sick, and stumbled away from the crowd in search of some place to safely puke in.  She didn't make it and ended up vomiting in a dark alley.

Someone was in the alley with her.  Roman, asking if she was all right.  Kaitlynn gave him some sort of reply, probably.  That was as far as her memory of that night went.

The next morning, she was woken by the rough shaking and shouting of an angry guard.  Stiff, sore, and hungover, she looked around as the guard hauled her to her feet.  She was in a jail cell, with no memory of how she got there. 

The guard didn't give her time sort out her memories, or even ask him what was going on.  He took her out of the jail and led her not to a courthouse or town hall as she expected, but the church, were a large crowd was gathered.  Inside she was led up to the altar, where the priest and her companions waited.

"So," the priest intoned, "this is the person accused of impersonating the Divine Hero, Nehame?"

"Impersonating?"  A shove and command from the guard at her side kept her from asking more.

"Did you not hide within the ancient temple in order to mimic the prophecies of the return of Nehame?"

"No!"

"You deny that you were there?  That the three honorable warriors and servants of the Church did not see you there?"

"I wasn't there on purpose!  I didn't even know what the Divine Hero was!"  The crowd did not think much of her explanation. In the hostile atmosphere, it sounded like an empty excuse even to her.

The priest went on.  "You falsely claimed to come from another world?"

"It's not a lie!  Do I _look_ like I come from around here?"

"You have behaved wantonly and shamefully in a public place, before the eyes of all!"

"Huh?  What do you mean, 'wantonly?'"

"Were you so drunk you can't remember?"  It was Rialla who spoke.  "He means your disgusting display that you passed off as dancing."

"That was considered slutty to you?"  Kaitlynn couldn't believe it.  Her style of dancing was considered tame back home.  Some of her guy friends even made fun of her for it.

"Finally, you attempted to seduce an honorable nobleman, a holy warrior of the Church!"

"What?"

"You were caught attempting to embrace Lord Alteus in carnal lust!  Do you deny it?"

She meant to deny it completely, but bits and pieces of the night before rose in her mind:  of Roman looking at her in concern, of stumbling and leaning against him, of him over her, pinning her to the ground....  Still, she held firm. 

"I deny it!  I don't care how drunk I was, I'd never try to sleep with him!  He's a creep!  If anything, he took advantage of me when I was drunk!"

This was meant with outrage from everyone around her.  Shen, staring coldly at her, said, "I've known Roman for many years.  He would never do something so monstrous."

It was hard to maintain order after that.  Nothing Kaitlynn said in her defense mattered.  Her guilt had been decided before she ever set foot inside that church.  The only thing left undecided was her sentencing.  She wasn't sentenced to prison; impersonating a divine figure was a religious matter, not a legal one, and the church had no prisons.  What the church could do, however, was mark her for social disgrace, and demand a heavy fine for her crimes.  For the former, her hair was shorn; for the latter, everything she owned was taken for her:  her watch, her necklace, her earrings, even the contents of her pockets.  It wasn't enough to cover the price the priest demanded, and there was a threat of selling her into bondage, but in the end, it was waived, and she was let loose with a stern command to leave the town before the end of the day.

Kaitlynn set off at once, holding onto her right ear in the hopes of staunching the bleeding (they hadn't been gentle when taking her earrings), not knowing or really caring where the road she was on would take her.  She truly had nothing with her except the clothes on her back.  The odds were good that she would die long before she reached the next town. 

It was a good road, wide and well-maintained, so at least the walking was easy.  A bad road would have been better, because then the terrain would have distracted her and kept her from thinking of her current position and how she got there.  It would be nice to say it all felt unreal, but unfortunately the crushing reality of it weighed her down.

Being a main road, other people also passed by, all headed in the same direction as her.  At one point, after a few hours on the road, an older couple in a wagon came up behind her.  Because her strength was flagging, she caught their attention and asked for a ride.  Reluctantly, the husband agreed, over his wife's objections.  They let her sit in the back of the wagon, where she watched the road without seeing it.  What was she going to do when she got to the next town?  She had no money, no possessions.  She couldn't even sell her hair to a wigmaker.

It was late afternoon when they arrived at their destination, not a town but a small city, by the looks of it from the outer gates.  Upon getting off, she asked the man if he knew where the church was.  With a nod of approval, he gave her directions, and soon they parted ways.

*** * ***

The church was easy enough to find; after a few blocks, she could see the steeple rising above the rooftops.  She quickened her pace, for her appearance--disheveled and bloody, with strange clothes--understandably generated a lot of comment.

That she would go straight back to the church after her experience that morning might seem odd, but from what she could remember of history, the church was the main social safety net for the poor.  She assumed it would be the same here.  It certainly held a great deal of influence, from what she had seen.  And while the priest from the last town had condemned her and cast her out, he was just one man.  Surely not every priest would be the same. 

There was an evening service in progress when she stepped into the church.  Trying to remain inconspicuous, she took a seat in a pew near the back.

The priest was recounting a story from the first age of Man.  In the beginning of the world, the Earth was a paradise.  No one needed to toil, for food, clothing, and shelter were all given to them freely.  And yet the people were not happy.  The mindless beasts in the fields could live in indolence and be happy, but men were not beasts.  The needed purpose and action, and so they came before God with their demand.  Three times God asked the first men if this was truly their desire, and three times they answered "yes."  The first men vowed to toil and labor daily without complaint.

"Very well," God said (according to the priest), "I will grant you this wish.  The paradise I made for you is closed to you forever.  Never again will anything be granted to you but you did not earn it.  As you are My people, made in My image, My blessing will remain upon you so long as you hold fast to your vow.  Remain faithful, and I will reward your labor tenfold.  You shall have dominion over the beasts and the plants, and they shall give up their meat and fruit for you.  But if you ever regret your choice, or grow lazy and demand to return to the days of manna from heaven, then I shall cast you down even lower than the beasts, who toil and suffer at the hands of men, and yet, because they know not their fate, remain happy."

From there the priest began to berate his audience, accusing them (and all the world) of having forsaken the vow of the first men.  The people of this age, he claimed, were lazy and spoiled.  They were living in a prosperous time, and because of that they had forgotten the value of honest work, instead relying on servants and slaves to do everything for them, even getting dressed.

Eventually, the church service ended.  Kaitlynn waited in her seat as the attendees filed out of the service.  She meant to look for the priest once everyone else had left, but the priest came to her instead.

"Well, who might you be?  What are you doing here?"

She glanced up at him.  There was no hint of kindness or generosity in his gaze, only suspicion.  It was not an auspicious start. "I'm sorry to bother you, Father, but I need your help."

With obvious reluctance, he stood up and guided her back into the hallway, where she told him her story.  It was somewhat condensed and lacking in details.  Her clothes might be odd, but she wasn't sure he'd believe her if she told him she came from another world.  Instead she simply told him she was a stranger to the country, who had briefly met and traveled with Roman and the others, only for them to take advantage of her and turn on her.

His expression didn't soften one bit as she spoke.  When she finished, he crossed his arms and asked her what she expected him to do about it.

"Can't you help me?  Find me a place to stay, a change of clothes, or something like that?  I don't know anything about this world!  I'm lost and I need help!"

"God helps those who help themselves.  Rather than begging for charity, you would do better to repent your wicked past, and turn your hands towards honest work."

"Repent?  I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Do you take me for a fool?  You dare walk onto holy ground, with such an outrageously unsavory appearance, and spin some wild tale of betrayal?  It's too far-fetched for even a woman's romance!"

In vain she tried to argue with him; he had decided she was a liar and a criminal, and nothing she could say or do would convince him otherwise.  He dragged her, still protesting, out into the street, with a promise to call the guards if she came back.

If the church was no help, the police, once she managed to find one, were no better:  he threatened to throw her in prison for vagrancy.  If any sort of shelters for the homeless existed, she couldn’t find them, and when night fell, she was still wandering the street.  Tired, thirsty, hungry, and dizzy, she leaned against a wall for a bit, only to hear a sharp voice call out to her.

"Hey!  This is my turf!  Go find your own street!"

Startled, Kaitlynn pulled off the wall and stared in confusion.  The woman before her was dressed much like other women she had seen during the day--at least in the sense that the clothes appeared to technically be the same kinds of articles.  The way this woman wore them, however, made her dress appear drastically different.  They still covered the same amount of skin, and fit the same way, but looking at her, Kaitlynn had the impression that the woman's belt was the only thing holding her dress up. 

"Did you hear me?  I told you to turn your tricks someplace else!"

It took a second, but Kaitlynn finally realized what the woman was saying.  "I'm not a prostitute."

"Sure you aren't," the woman scoffed, but something made her give Kaitlynn a second look.  "First night on the street?"

"Something like that."

"You'll never make any money looking like that.  If you want, I can help you clean yourself up.  Me and the girls can scrounge up some threads for you, and we can help you get started.  We know this area; we can tell you which men are safe and which ones to stay away from."

"Thank you, but I'd rather not sell myself," Kaitlynn replied, and she started to walk again.

As she passed the woman, she said, "some free advice, girlie:  men are going to take what they want, whether you will or no.  Might as well get something in return." 

Kaitlynn made no reply, but the woman's words echoed in her head even after she eventually found a dark corner in an alley to rest.  The woman's advice had some logic to it, but she couldn't bring herself to accept it.  She had heard similar sentiments before, usually from people trying to spin it as empowering.  Go against the prudish rules of society to live the glamorous life of a courtesan, with men wrapped around you finger.  Or rather spend a precarious life jumping from one rich man to another, tolerating whatever abuse they might dole out because you can't afford to lose their favor.  And that's if one had the charisma and luck to make it that high.  Prostitution is much like acting.  It might look glamorous and exciting from the outside, but the public tends to only focus on the relatively few who gain notoriety, not the countless others who can barely make ends meet, and rarely does anyone stop to consider what those few stars might have had to do to gain their position.

 

The following morning, the man running a small clothing shop on the eastside of town had an unusual customer.  Hair shorn like a man's, with strange garb, he was about to throw her out when she pointed at a set of shirt and pants on display and asked for the price.

He looked her up and down, considered the actual price of the garments, guessed the amount she had on her person, and did the math.  "12 coppers," he told her, hoping to rid of her.

"How much for these clothes?"  She pointed at her own.  He very nearly did throw her out then, but his instincts stopped him.  Instead he examined her clothing with great scrutiny, ignoring her obvious discomfort as he picked and pulled at the fabric.  Her clothes were very strange, and of unusual construction.  He was only a seller, but an artisan would find such garments of great interest.  He might even be able to get a whole silver out of them.

Stepping back, he looked over her once more and nodded.  "Also 12 copper."

She wasn't pleased but didn't argue.  After changing and handing over her old clothes, she turned and was about to leave the store when he had an idea.

"Wait!"  He pointed down at her feet.  "You forgot those."

"Are you going to give me new shoes for them?"

"We had a deal. Your outfit for that shirt and pants.  Now hand them over!"  He made a lunge for her, but she was faster, and dashed out the door and into the crowd.  He considered going after her, but in the end decided it wasn't worth the effort.  What he had would earn a tidy sum already.

An hour or so later, Kaitlynn was feeling much better than the day before.  She'd managed to trade in her clothes, and then later her shoes, so now she no longer stood out in a crowd.  On the east side of town, the poorer side, a different church there gave out food to beggars.  You had to listen to the priest rant at length about the approaching End of Days and the coming judgement and other doomsday nonsense, and you had to let him baptize you into his church, but you got a decent meal out of it eventually.  Kaitlynn sat through the sermon and let herself be baptized with barely any hesitation.  Really, it bothered her afterwards at how easily she let herself be converted--falsely, since she didn't believe in his religion, and only went along with it in order to eat.  It had only been a little over a day without food, and yet she was desperate enough to commit apostasy.  Like many Americans, she was raised in the Christian faith, and growing up in a more conservative state, she took it fairly seriously.  Her faith was supposed to be stronger than that.  People fasted voluntarily all the time without falling apart; why couldn't she be more resilient?  It's not like she was going to die if she didn't eat for a day or two, even if it felt like it.

Still, a full belly outweighed a guilty conscience, and in a much lighter mood she set out to look for work.  Near as she could tell, there was no government-run welfare system in town, no homeless shelters, no soup kitchens.  The doomsday priest gave out food, but she wasn't sure how regularly that happened.  It would be better not to rely on that.  She was on her own here.

There was a university somewhere in the city; she decided to try her luck there.  Not just for jobs; they might have someone willing to listen to her and help her find a way back home.

It was a vague plan, but it was something.


	2. Chapter 2

Several months later, the first day of spring arrived.  For the first time in months, the sun's rays brought warmth as well as light.  Outside the city, plants brought forth new shoots and leaves, and animals stirred from their homes.  Within the city, the warm weather seemed to breathe new life into everyone, lifting the spirits of the rich and poor alike.  Even Kaitlynn was not immune to the change.

After all, warmer nights meant she wouldn't have to worry about freezing to death anymore.

It had been a hard winter for her.  She'd given up any chance of going home.  Even if was possible, she didn't think she could go back to being a daughter, to being a teenager.  The girl she had once been was dead.

At least she'd survived.  Changing her clothes had helped reduce harassment, but not eliminate it completely.  She wore men’s' clothes, and with her short hair she was usually taken as one at first glance.  She still had no steady job.  How was she supposed to obtain one?  She had no money, no family, no references, no history, no reason for anyone to give a chance to an unknown.  So, they didn't.  It was the same old tale:  you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience.  And she couldn't exactly live in her parents' basement while working for free.  Odd jobs were available, but they did not come often enough or pay well enough to live.  And that was for entry-level jobs.  For everything above that, you also needed to be in a guild.  To join a guild, you needed references.  She was shut out.

There was no welfare.  The state did nothing to keep its citizens from starving or freezing.  Private charities did exist, but their problems were many and varied.

Some were run by religious fanatics who demanded your allegiance (and she was pretty sure the first one she found was an actual cult) or expected you to adhere to their standards of virtue and morality.  Often those standards were impossible.  She'd been turned away from one for being too dirty, but how was she to get clean?  Opportunities to wash the one set of clothes she had were few and far between

Quite a few turned out to be fronts for sex trafficking rings.  Kaitlyn nearly broke her leg jumping out of the second-floor window of a brothel once.  Others weren't explicitly intended as such, and officially offered respectable work (and docked your wages for every little thing, even things that made no sense), but it was pretty common for the men supervising everyone to expect the women to put in extra hours on their back. 

And then, of course, she could try selling herself into the slave trade.  It had shocked her the first time she stumbled upon that market and realized what it was. She remembered standing there, wondering what she should do, what she could do, in order to stop it.  In the end she had done nothing but flee, hating herself for it all the while.

Slavery was a subject she took unusually seriously, given her upbringing.  She was born and raised in the southeastern United States, where slavery had flourished for generations, and where even today the descendants and allies of slave owners worked hard to diminish and minimize the crimes of their ancestors.  Statues and plaques honoring men who took up arms against their country in a failed rebellion were everywhere, while schools downplayed that "peculiar institution" whenever possible.  Slavery wasn't that bad, actually (so why did so many slaves flee?  And Nat Turner?  Who's that?)  In fact, they were treated rather well, actually (if one ignored the whipping).  They were too expensive to be mistreated (and yet often were).  And how were children supposed to argue against that kind of logic?  Those who grew up after Columbine spent most of their lives under surveillance, from their helicopter parents to the metal detectors at schools.  How can they understand the importance of freedom when they never truly experienced it themselves?  Slaves, they were told, were taken care of and looked after like children; how would children find such a state degrading?  Deep in her heart Kaitlynn personally felt it was wrong, but she could never articulate why.

The arguments didn't stop there.  If one believed the history books, slavery was such a minor, insignificant part of the South.  Hardly any white southerners owned slaves, after all; it was only the rich minority that did.  Even the Civil War wasn't actually about slavery, it was about "States Rights," or "Northern Aggression" or the "Lost Cause" or some other bullshit reason that was just a distraction from the truth.  Its true purpose was to minimize the existence of an evil institution, and in doing so erase the culpability of all the men who took up arms against the Union, making them innocent victims instead of oppressors and traitors.  Slavery was at the heart of the South.  It was the basis for their culture, their economic power, their political power.  It influenced every aspect of life.  It was a major bone of contention in politics all over the country, starting from the country's founding.  People resorted to their fists over it.  Southerners had the habit of challenging abolitionists to a duel whenever a debate came up.  What lovely gentlemen, always resorting to death threats.

English class was no better, thinking it a better use of time to force students to read James Fenimore Cooper's tales of Natty Bumppo than the autobiography of, say, Frederick Douglass, even though Douglass was the far better writer.

It wasn't just the South.  Growing up, it felt like the rest of the whole damned world believed the lies.  The white part of the world, anyway.  She learned early that it was an uncomfortable subject to bring up, so she never got around to asking any of her black classmates and friends what they thought.  Even if she had, would they have felt comfortable telling the truth?  White people are quick to rail against racism and bigotry and hate, but only up to a point, and that point comes sooner than most are willing to admit.  They give lip service to equality and diversity and affirmative action and any other popular cause that benefits black people, but they won't live next door to them or send their kids to school with them.  And the same kind of people would argue that the Civil War was about anything other than slavery.  Whether South Carolina should fly the Confederate flag over its capital was a national debate, as if the question of flying a defeated traitor's flag could have any answer other than "no."  Even the more-liberal-than-thou Hollywood was guilty of whitewashing the war.  Kaitlynn remembered a famous Oscar-bait movie that came out when she was younger.  It took place in the South, during the Civil War, and yet somehow managed to avoid barely any mention of slavery.  Had a Confederate soldier as a hero, too.  Really, out of all the Civil War stories they could have possibly done, and _that_ was the tale they decided was worth telling? 

She used to be a fan of _Firefly_ , until she learned that Joss Whedon had been inspired by sympathy for the Confederacy and their "lost cause."  As if there was something romantic and appealing in a group fighting to preserve a society and way of life that explicitly and consciously depended upon exploiting degrading the lives of countless others.  The rest of the world eventually turned against him, but it took so long that by the time the tide had turned, Kaitlynn had felt nothing but irritation over it.

Oh, things are different _now_ , you might say.  That might be true.  There was a huge shift in public discourse not too long ago.  Practically overnight, people were suddenly up in arms against the symbols of the Confederacy that had been allowed to remain all over the country unmolested and unchallenged.  _Now_ they are viewed as symbols of racism, instead of a remembrance of people's heritage in history.  _Now_ people insist that of course the Civil War was about slavery, of course slavery was bad, of course the Lost Cause was fictional nonsense.  Too bad it only took the deaths of nine people in a church to get people to say it.  Yes, people care about this _now._   They didn't care about it yesterday.  Will they care about it tomorrow?

Kaitlynn left her world before the shift.  She never got the vindication she badly needed.  It's a hard thing, to hold fast to one's beliefs against an entire world.  With no one to back her up, to remind her that she was right, she eventually began to doubt herself.  The six months spent in this world, where just surviving often took all of one's energy, had done the rest.  The first time she entered the slave market had horrified her; now, she felt nothing whenever she passed by it. 

She still refused to try selling herself into bondage, however.  Why?  For the same reasons poor white farmers in the South never tried to do the same.  For the same reasons most people never chose to do the same.

So that was that.  Those were the options society gave to help raise herself up out of poverty, and none of them useful.  Is it any wonder she turned to crime?

It had taken a few months before she could bring herself to resort to it (she had always been a rather straitlaced, obedient kid), but when the choice came down to stealing or dying, she chose theft.  The risks were high, and her own skill was low, so she tried not to rely on it, but she was no longer above using it.  Months of being looked down on, sneered at, or outright avoided or ignored had killed any sympathy she might have had for her fellow man.  Honestly, if she could get hold of a knife, she probably wouldn't even be above murder.  There were a few people she definitely wanted to kill.

They were too far out of reach for her, so she set her plans of revenge aside, to be savored whenever she had time to indulge in daydreams.  At the moment, she had a few coppers on her, enough to pay for dinner and a room that night, with a few pennies left over.  She'd be able to wash up, and then tomorrow she could head to the university.  There was one professor there who often had errands that needed to be run.  And if not, she could sell the cloak she'd acquired over the winter.  It would be too warm and too bulky to keep in spring and summer.

The streets were far more crowded than usual, due to an influx of merchants and travelers through the city gates that morning.  Kaitlynn got swept up in the mass of people and was trying to avoid stepping on anyone's shoes--rich men took great offense at that--when her eye caught someone's purse on the ground.  Quickly, before she lost sight of it, she reached down and picked it up, glancing around at the crowd.  If someone confronted her, she could easily say she planned to give it to its rightful owner or pass it along to a city guard.  No one called out to her in the crowd, so, keeping an eye out, she started moving towards the first guard she could see.  As she did so, she hid the purse under her cloak, and when she got near the guard, she just kept on walking right past him, trying to look calm.  No one took any notice of her, but she kept walking until she made it back into the slums. In a corner of a deserted alley, after triple-checking the area for prying eyes, she tore off a strip of her cloak (easy enough to do, since the fabric was of such poor quality) and used that to tie the purse to her waist under her shirt.  She wrapped the cloth around it several times to keep the coins from making noise, then leaned against a wall to think.

All her thefts before had been small, usually food from an inattentive seller.  The problem with large thefts isn't just the attention the loss brings.  Kaitlynn had seen many thieves get caught by spending too much, too soon after a heist.  However much she stole, it was far more than anything a person like her could earn honestly.  Even the purse, embroidered in shiny golden thread, was far too fine.  The purse itself would be worth quite a bit, but it could probably also be identified.  Maybe she could pick it apart and sell the thread and fabric separately? 

It might be best for her to leave town soon.  Even though the alley was deserted, with no windows in any of the walls for spies to peer out of, she still felt suspicious eyes on her.  There was no way she hadn't been seen, not with that many people.  Any minute now the guards could come running after her. 

With the coins she had earned herself, she bought a room in a cheap inn, along with a basin to wash up with.  She checked the walls and ceiling of the room for peepholes before she started stripping to clean herself; the sketchier places sometimes also catered to voyeurs.  Once at least semi-clean, and after checking the room again, she carefully emptied out the purse on the bed to count her fortune.

It was way too much.  She only regularly encountered pennies, half-coppers, and coppers.  She'd seen silver coins before.  In addition to all those, there was a gold-colored coin and half a gold-coin sitting in the middle of all the rest of the purse's contents.  Just how much were they even worth?  It took one hundred pennies to make one copper, and one hundred coppers to make one silver, so if the pattern held....  God, what could you even buy with that kind of money?  What _couldn't_ you buy?  If anyone found out how much money she had, she was dead.  Might as well paint a target on her back.  How could someone carry so much money so safely and carelessly?

The answer was obvious:  it had belonged to a wealthy man.  Wealth brings power.  Few would dare attack a rich man, because even if he didn't have guards to defend him, the law would come to his aid, the way it never did for anyone living on the street.

Her face pensive, Kaitlynn studied the pile of coins before her.  It was dangerous to carry so much coin, and it would be hard to even use the gold coins unless she bought something very expensive.  But what?  A house?  Weapons?  What could she buy that couldn't easily be taken away from her?

Eventually, she came up with a plan.  It was one she never would have considered back at the beginning, before this world had ground her morals and principles into dust.

Early afternoon found her at the slave market.  She had headed there after getting a decent meal and buying somewhat better clothes and shoes than she was accustomed to wearing. 

Back in her own world, obedience in slaves was kept through violent and systematic oppression.  Frequent overseers were needed to keep watch over them, and concerted efforts were made to break up any social groups among slaves in order to prevent an uprising.  Teaching them to read and write was frequently forbidden by law, as was allowing a slave to ever earn any money for any sort of labor.  Families were often separated; people were literally treated like chattel and punished with physical beatings.  Anyone who escaped would be hunted down across the entire country.  The general belief was that black men were inferior mentally, and incapable of self-governance, which was why they needed to be enslaved.  In short, everything that could feasibly done to break people's spirits was done to keep slaves in line, and still it often failed.

Kaitlynn assumed the same things were done in this world, but they had an added form of control:  the slave collars.  She wasn't clear on the details, but those devices were used to bind slaves to their owner, and force obedience from them, often painfully. 

It was a vile device, but that didn't deter her one bit.  She was beyond caring.  A slave would be expensive, but to her mind worth the price.  They would serve both as a bodyguard, and as an assistant to help guide her through this world.  There was still much she didn't know, and the more she could fit in, the better.  True, she could have hired someone for much less, but too many people in this world had cheated her.  She wouldn't trust anyone to serve or aid her unless they had no choice to obey.

*** * ***

The slave market could be found not too far from the slums, within site of the Church of the Holy Flame.  It was the oldest church in the city, and had once been the grandest, before the market was set up.  It seems it was hard for the wealthy to feel pious while passing by crowds of chained men, women, and children herded into pens, all reduced to the level of sheep and cows in the eyes of the law and men.  So, a new church was built on the west side, and the wealthy and privileged only came by when they needed to buy new flesh.

The market itself was walled off on all sides so that no one on the outside could see in.  If you passed by it at night, you could sometimes hear muffled cries and screams.  On the whole, it looked like a prison.  It _was_ a prison.

Today, the market was open, and the front gates flung open.  After a moment spent steeling her nerves, Kaitlynn stepped over the threshold and entered the slave market.

There were a few ramshackle buildings scattered around the perimeter, not much better than what one finds in the slums.  The rest of the area was largely open, with different sets of people--slaves--divided into groups, each with their own seller.  Wandering around and examining the slaves were potential customers.  Kaitlynn watched them a bit as they examined the limbs and teeth of individual slaves and held long discussions with the slave traders.  After getting an idea of how the transaction was supposed to go, she turned her attention to the sellers and the people being sold.

One man seemed to predominately sell orcs, or ogres, or goblins, or gremlins, or whatever they were called.  She'd heard all three terms used interchangeably.  They were a common enough sight, usually in the role of bodyguard, or anywhere brute strength was needed.  The problem for her was their size.  They usually stood head and shoulders above humans, and most were muscular in build.  Slave collar or no, she didn't think she could control someone so physically imposing.  So they were out.

Women were out as an option, too.  There was no practical reason for it, only sentiment.  She still had enough sympathy for her fellow women to not wish to enslave one.  Men were a different story.  They could all rot, for all she cared.  If she thought she could get away with it, she'd go on a killing spree, targeting shitty men.  Honestly, she didn't understand why women didn't go around doing that all the time.

"Welcome!  Interested in a new slave?  I have a new batch, just brought in!"

Startled, Kaitlynn jumped back at the man who'd just stepped right in front of her while she was looking into the pens.  She took an instant dislike to him.  He put her in mind of a used car salesman.  Or a politician.  There was a lot of overlap between the two.

He seemed like the type to browbeat customers into buying, but she was usually stubborn enough to resist if she really didn't want something, so she figured she might as well play along.

"I want someone who can fight and has something of an education.  And it needs to be a man."

The trader nodded delightedly.  "Are you looking for a personal slave, or someone to fight in the Coliseum?"

Of course the cliched medieval fantasy city had a coliseum.  Kaitlynn had never been.  She had no interest in sports back in her old life, and she still had no interest in sports of any kind here.

"Personal.  I need someone who can protect me from robbers and help guide my way in this land.  I'm a foreigner." 

Nodding again, he put his hand on her shoulder to guide her and didn't react at all when she instinctually shoved him off.  He even kept his hands off her as he led her to a young human man with blond hair.  He was pretty, slim and delicately built, with a somewhat effeminate air.  If she had to guess, he seemed to be about her age, or maybe a bit younger.  Something about his face felt unpleasantly familiar.  He reminded her, however slightly, of a certain group of three.  It was the aura of money.  He looked like someone who came from wealth.

"This young lad you see here was brought up in the house of a wealthy nobleman, until some unfortunate personal circumstances of his master forced him to sell some of his possessions."  As he talked, he held out the boy's limbs for her to examine and bade him open his mouth so she could inspect his teeth.   "Out of all my slaves you see here, I believe he would be best suited to serve a young lady such as yourself, for he was made a eunuch at a young age and is perfectly harmless to you."  Finishing his spiel, the trader moved towards her, stepping right into her personal space.  "Of course, if he is not to your liking, I would be happy to show you the rest."

The hairs on the back of her neck rose.  It always made her nervous whenever someone realized she was female.  This was also literally the first time in six months that anyone had referred to her as a lady, except ironically.  Her clothes weren't _that_ fine.  He was being far too polite.  This felt like a trap.  On the other hand, she'd feel less guilty owning a spoiled slave from a wealthy house than some poor soul condemned to a life of drudgery and hard labor since birth.

"Can he actually fight?"  The slave trader assured her that was the case.  "Prove it."  She pointed at one of his other slaves at random, a tall red-headed man.  "Make him fight that guy."

"Why, certainly!  Will wooden weapons be satisfactory?  It wouldn't do to injure the merchandise unnecessarily."

A space was cleared in the center of the pen, the two were given wooden swords and shields, and a command, the bout began.  The red-headed man was taller and broader than the boy she was looking to purchase, but in the beginning, at least, the fight seemed evenly matched, at least as far as she could tell.  It could all be staged, but she hoped picking a slave at random would have prevented that.  She wasn't knowledgeable enough to discern acting from genuine combat.  After a few minutes, when she started to get bored, she called it off.

"He's good enough, I guess.  How much?  I'd rather not haggle."

"Well, considering his youth, his skills, and temperament, I'd say..." she waited as he pretended to do math in his head, "...20 silvers would be a good price for him, don't you think?"

"Will this cover it?"  She held out the half-gold piece.  His eyes widened briefly, but he quickly recovered.

"Oh, yes, most certainly."

*** * ***

Marius was still breathing hard and trembling a little as Caelum concluded the sale with his new owner.  She had made him fight against Adel, strong as an orc and easily the best fighter in the group.  The whole fight he had struggled to keep his footing while dodging and parrying.  He never got a blow of his own back in.  Still, he must have done well enough to please her, since she agreed to buy him without even trying to haggle over the price. 

It was strange.  She was strange.  She was a woman who dressed like a man, and even though she didn't look rich (her clothes were no better than his own), she pulled out a half-gold piece like it was nothing.  Maybe she was making the purchase on behalf of someone else?  But Caelum soon came over to adjust his slave collar and bind it to her specifically.  If he'd been meant for someone else, he'd either have to wait for his new master to arrive, or Caelum would deliver him to his new master after the market closed. 

"Why Strickland, if you don't mind my asking?" he heard Caelum say as he fastened the metal band that tied Marius to his new owner around her wrist.

"It's the name of a teacher I really hated.  It's easy to remember, and unlikely to come up in conversation.  Wouldn't want to set it off accidentally."

Caelum chuckled.  "Of course not.  Well, the band is set, and I trust you understand all your rights and responsibilities, yes?  Any other questions for me?  No?  Then he's all yours!" 

Marius stepped forward.  "It's a pleasure to serve you, Mistress.  I am--"

"Strickland!"

He was caught off-guard and couldn't scream.  His body stiffened as agonizing pain coursed through it, then collapsed as it left.  Looking up from the ground, he saw two faces:  Caelum's worried one, and his new mistress's, the corners of her mouth turned up slightly.

"Sorry," she said lightly.  "I needed to know it would work.  Can you stand?"  She didn't help him as he got to his feet.  "Any belongings you need to grab?  Then let's head out."  Without waiting, she turned to leave.  Uncertain, he looked towards Caelum, who just shooed him off after her.

As he caught up with her, he tried to introduce himself again.  "As I was saying, Mistress, my name is Ma--"

"I don't care what you name is.  You're my meatshield now."

"I--what?"

"My meatshield.  It's your job to protect me, after all."

"Er, yes, Mistress."  They continued walking.

"How old are you, anyway?  You sound really young."

"Twenty, Mistress."

"What, really?  No way!"

"I have no reason to lie, Mistress."

She fell quiet again.  Eventually, after several minutes’ silence, she started speaking again.  "So how much did he cheat me?"

"Er, what?"

"The slave trader.  I'm sure he overcharged me for you.  I want to know how much."

"Mistress, I can't really say.  I don't know how you measure the value of a man.  I know the price he gave you is the same he gave to every other man."

"So, how much are you compared to other slaves?  Are you expensive or cheap?"

"I'm not the cheapest.  I've seen people go for as low as five silver, but they weren't good for anything but working in the fields.  Those in good health, and with skills are worth more."

"Well, I hope you were worth it.  Anyway, I need to buy us weapons.  And equipment for traveling.  I want to leave this city as soon as possible."

"Yes, Mistress.  Where are we going?"

She shrugged.  "Anywhere.  Away.  I just want to start over.  By the way, do you think you'd be able to teach me how to fight?"

"I don't know, I've never taught anyone before.  That's probably something best left to an actual instructor, Mistress."  He did not add that his style of combat was mean to be more flashy than practical, and even leaving that aside, there was a limit to his abilities.  No one wanted a slave who was too good at killing.  He had been trained as a guard, but in truth he had mostly been for show, and, on occasion, entertainment.

"I'm not waiting around in this town just to learn how to stab someone.  You'll have to teach me on the road."

Confused, he followed her through the streets towards the other market, where food, furniture, decorations, weapons, and more could be sold, but not people.  The Church barely tolerated the practice of slavery and placed strict rules on where slaves could be sold.  It was a sinful practice, after all.  Men should do their own labor.  Relying on others made one weak, both spiritually and physically.  And men who allowed themselves to be lowered to the level of chattel could barely be considered men, which was why slavery was often used as a punishment for lowborn criminals.  Whether through their actions or through their natures, slaves were a disgrace in the eyes of God.  Only by toiling for others could they achieve any sort of redemption.

Marius knew all of this and accepted it as true.  He was cut from a very different cloth than Kaitlynn.  She had opposed the whole world and tried to hold fast to her own beliefs and convictions, until it wore her down and drove her mad.  Marius didn't fight against the world.  He chose to bend in accordance with its will, and meekly accept and agree with all that it gave him...and went mad in a different way. 

When he was still a young child, his parents had sold him to his first master after the man had taken an interest in him.  His master had then made him a eunuch in accordance with his own preferences.  He had experienced two devastating losses, one right after the other, before he was even old enough to understand what he was losing.  Between accepting his fate as something just and correct, and acknowledging the evil that was done to him--by his own family, no less--is it any wonder he chose the former?  So, he obeyed his master, and thanked his parents for sending him to live with a wealthy man, and considered himself blessed.  If he harbored any resentment or ill-will towards anyone, he kept those feelings locked deep inside him, unseen and unacknowledged.

At the market, she left him in charge of buying weapons, armor, supplies, and even new clothes for the both of them.  This was terrifying.  It was far more responsibility than he'd ever had before.  Worse, her instructions were frustratingly vague.  She couldn't tell him how long they would be on the road, or where they were going, or just how much fighting she was expecting to see.  Aside from an insistence on keeping the cost down, she didn't offer much input.  Strange that she'd drop 20 silver on him with barely a thought, only to turn into a miser now.  Stranger still was her behavior.  The entire time she acted distracted, looking around at everyone, paying more attention to the crowd than any of the merchandise.  It also became clear as he started gathering the more practical necessities, such as food or sleeping gear (she insisted on both, as if they were planning on camping), that she was incredibly ignorant about what would be necessary for such a journey.  She had expected the two of them to be able to carry everything, for one thing.

That evening they ate together in a cheap tavern.  She raved over the food and took a second helping, as well as his leftovers.  He was not so impressed.  His previous master had been a generous and extravagant who spoiled his favorites, so Marius was used to much finer fare.  That same extravagance had led to his old master being chest-deep in debt, so this cheap meal was probably the wiser course.  It was better than the food in the slave pens.

The beds were better, too, although not by much.  She had dropped her penny-pinching habit to insist on separate rooms for the both of them.  Usually a master wouldn't let a new slave out of their sight so soon.  Slave collar notwithstanding, some slaves would jump at any chance to flee.  Perhaps she trusted him?  It was a pleasant thought, although unlikely.  He'd already realized she was highly paranoid, refusing to store her excess money in a bank despite his suggestions and making him check her room for peepholes. 

This was the person he would have to live for from now on.  That was the main thought on his mind as he went to sleep.

*** * ***

Kaitlynn counted her money before leaving her room the next morning.  They'd had to exchange the gold coin, but she still had plenty of silver, which she hid in various pouches and pockets throughout her person.  She didn't really have enough pockets for it all, so she had to get creative with hiding it.  Giving some of it to her new slave was out of the question, of course.

About a year ago, she read a book in which the narrator, a doctor in ancient Egypt, early on bought a slave of his own.  The slave she had liked, for he frequently and openly stole from all his masters without remorse or shame.  The narrator took no issue with the theft, seeing it as his right as a slave.  As a teenager who could only work in lowly service-type jobs, such reasoning sounded perfectly natural and just to her.  Now that she had a slave of her own, her feelings were rather different.

On her slave's recommendation, they headed north to a place called Vivere.  The city was large, the roads were good, and there were several towns along the way.  Against her slave's recommendation, they went by themselves, with nothing more than a cheap mule and cart to carry their supplies.  If it was only to be the two of them, it was safer to travel with a caravan.  It had taken some persuasion for him to convince her to get the cart. He had to promise her they'd be able to sell it once they reached Vivere before she gave in.

"So how often do Shades attack people, do you think?" she asked him about an hour after they'd started on the road.

"I really don't know, Mistress.  It was never something that I needed to know."

"Hm.  Well, let’s hope it's not too often.  And stop calling me Mistress all the time.  It's creepy."

"Then what should I call you?"

"I don't know--just call me Kaitlynn or something, I don't care."

"Yes, Mistress."  He winced as the title slipped out by habit, but she didn't do anything worse than glare at him for a second.  They walked on in silence.

Eventually, she spoke up again.  "I guess you've never fought a shade before."

"No, Mis--Kaitlynn."  He'd never actually been in a genuine fight against other men, either, and he prayed she wouldn't ask any further questions on the subject.

She didn't.  "There was this professor at the university I talked to about them.  He told me that shades could be felled quickly by metal blades, but not fists or wooden clubs.  Something about the iron, he thinks.  He was interested in getting hold of a captured shade to study.  I suppose we'll have to keep an eye out."

"I thought Shades vanished when they were defeated."

"They do; that's why he hasn't got ahold of one yet.  We'd probably have to take one alive."  She smiled at him, a dark, bitter smile.

No shades met them on the first day, nor the second.  They passed by other travelers, and soldiers patrolling the roads for robbers, but nothing else.  In the mornings and the evenings Kaitlynn made Marius teach her how to use a sword.  She wasn't hopeless at it, but neither was she naturally talented.

For some reason she refused to spend the night at inns.  "Too much money," was the explanation she gave, which was ridiculous. He just added it to the growing list of his owner's eccentricities. 

On the third day they were met by a man running towards them, shouting intelligibly.  Feeling his Mistress tense beside him and reach for her weapon, he looked to her and asked what they should do.  Rather than answer, she took off running at the man, sword drawn.

Marius stared after her in shock as she ran at the man, then past him.  It wasn't until she swung her sword down that he finally saw and recognized the shade, one of several that had been chasing the man.  Her form was terrible, but she was right about metal blades--it disappeared almost instantly.  She was already after the second before he realized he'd better go an help her.

He wasn't fast enough.  By the time he reached the two all the shades had been defeated, dropping small showers of loose change, and Kaitlynn turned to him with an expression of shock and joy.

"I did it!"

"My lady, please," the man, gasping, gestured back in the direction he had come.  Screams and shouts could be heard, and in the distance, was a wagon under attack by more shades.  So, Marius and Kaitlynn hurried to the rescue.

This time Marius was able to kill three shades on his own and was feeling quite pleased with himself as the family fell on their knees and thanked him and his mistress.

Until the father saw the man who had gotten their attention return.  "Jaro, you coward!  You think you can just run at the first sign of trouble?  Alveos!"  Marius watched as the man, who was wearing a slave collar, screamed in agony and collapsed to the ground.

"That was a bit harsh," Kaitlynn said in a monotone.

"You don't know him like I do," the father declared.  "He's a pathetic, lowly worm--jumps at his own shadow."  He spat in disgust.  "They're all the same--lazy, cowardly wretches.  No spine to stand up for themselves with, and no morals of their own, either.  They'll take any chance to cheat or steal.  Mark my words," he said, pointing at Marius, "your boy is no different.  You'd best keep an eye on him, or you'll learn the hard way."

Kaitlynn said nothing to this.  "Why were you traveling without guards or weapons?  It's a bit dangerous, isn't it?"

"Didn't think we'd need them.  Never heard of shades on this road before."

"Well, now you know."

The family tried to convince Kaitlynn to come with them, at least until the nearest inn, but she refused.  They pleaded with her as she picked up the coins dropped by the shades, and the entire way back to her mule and cart.  The father actually got quite angry with her, but she held firm.  Not even the offer of money would persuade her.  After all, she was heading in the opposite direction. 

After she had finally convinced them she wasn't going to change her mind and the family had travelled far enough to be out of sight and earshot, Marius worked up the nerve to ask her a question.

"Mistress, why didn't you tell them about using blades to fight shades?"

"Why should I help them?  They were jerks.  I saved their life, and all I get is thanks in return?  What about a reward?"

"But if they should run into more shades down the road--"

"Then they'll probably die."  She turned to look at him.  "You could have said something too, you know."

"It's not my place to speak to my betters.  If I haven't been addressed directly, I'm supposed to stay silent."

"That's a fine excuse.  You'd let people die just because you're afraid of getting into trouble?"

He did not say, "you'd let people die just for their rudeness."  He didn't even think it.  Instead he simply said, "I'm sorry, Mistress," and accepted her chastisement.  She didn't look satisfied with his reaction but said nothing and walked on in silence.

They reached the next town without further incident.  That night at dinner, Kaitlynn brought up the Shades she encountered on the road, which upset the other travelers greatly.  As she boasted of defeating the shades without any difficulty, it wasn't long before someone begged her to come with them on the road the next day.  They were heading north, just like she was, and they offered to pay, half up front, the rest once they reached their destination, so she agreed.

Marius privately wondered if their new companions regretted paying when they him teaching his mistress the basics of sword fighting in the morning, but they never said anything.  Any doubts they might have had were resolved on the second day, when shades did attack.  This new set of monsters was as easy to defeat as the last.  Marius started to wonder why people feared them so much.  It felt strange to charge money for such an easy task, but his mistress was delighted.  It was a decent source of income, and so for a while they lived this way, selling their cart and mule and much of their excess equipment to travel with merchants, rich farmers, and other families and protect them from the threat of shades.  Sometimes they went the entire journey without encountering one, sometimes they'd be attacked multiple times.  There was no pattern. 

He did notice one strange thing about the shades.  Once in a while, someone else from the group they were escorting would have a blade or other weapon on them and would try to help fight the shades.  If it was a stick or a club, their efforts generally amounted to nothing.  That was to be expected, if the professor his mistress mentioned was correct.  But even men bearing bladed weapons still had trouble, taking multiple blows to defeat a shade when Kaitlynn only needed one.  It wasn't a matter of skill.  Marius knew for a fact that he was a better swordsman than her, but he often had as much trouble fighting shades as everyone else.  There was nothing special about her weapon; it was the same style and quality as his own. He couldn't make sense of it, so he just tried to accept it.  This was reality, and there was no changing; the whys and wherefores were pointless to consider.

About three months after they originally set out from Vivere, they finally arrived, with pockets heavy with coin.  Marius hoped he'd be able to convince her to keep the money in a bank this time.  But first they needed to eat.

Although the food was good, and certainly far better than what they'd been eating on the road, his mistress still found fault with it.  Or at least it seemed that way to him.

"I don't get it," she grumbled, stabbing a fork at her plate.  "This whole place resembles some kinda pseudo-medieval world.  There’re the clothes, the lack of guns, the metal armor, the style of buildings--all that looks like it was designed by someone who was at least aiming for a medieval society.  But tomatoes are a New World food!"  So, saying, she held up her fork, which had one speared on the tines.  "And I don't think forks are that old, either.  But there's no pizza.  If there's going to be tomatoes in a fantasy world, you might as well go all the way and have pizza."

"Pizza, Mistress?"

"It's great.  It's this big flat bread" (she motioned with her arms to encompass the small table they were sitting at) "and then you put tomato sauce on top, and then on top of that you cover it in tons of cheese, and then you add other stuff, life ground beef or sausage, or sliced up veggies, or pineapple's actually surprisingly not terrible--but anyway, you put whatever toppings you want, then you bake until the bread is cooked, and then you slice it up and eat it.  It's great."

"It sounds delicious," he said politely.

"It is, and I miss it so bad," she moaned, and put her head in her hands.  "I wonder if the chef will let me borrow his oven.  And pantry.  And maybe help me with making the bread, because I don't remember the exact amounts of the ingredients.  And maybe he could show me how to make tomato sauce.  In fact, maybe I should just tell him what I'm looking for and have him figure it out.  Do you think he'd be okay with that?"

"I'm not sure, Mistress.  But I think it would be an inconvenience for the rest of the customers."

She didn't answer him.  A group of men was sitting near them, and their conversation had grown loud enough to be heard easily.

"--Oh, no, didn't you hear?  Those three hero wannabes came and routed the orcs.  Killed the whole tribe.  Guess they aren't just for show."

"Hey, enough of your blasphemy, now.  Plenty of people think they really are the ones meant to find the new Nehame.  People are calling that Roman lad a reincarnation of his ancestor, you know."

"And it's not as if they're just wandering around looking for praise, either.  They've done a lot of good in this world.  We're lucky to have them."

"You're both brainwashed!  Those three are just rich brats looking for praise!  If they really thought they were guided by destiny, why haven't they started their pilgrimage, eh?  Killing orcs is well and good, but what about getting rid of shades and defeating Amaut?"

"How are they supposed to do that without Nehame?"

The argument continued, but Kaitlynn sat frozen in her chair, staring intensely at nothing, her face turning red.  Marius couldn't understand why.

"Mistress, are you feeling alright?  Do you need some fresh air?"

She didn't look at him.  "We need to go."

Marius quickly paid for their meal and led her outside.  He tried to lead her someplace in the shade, where she could sit down, but she waved him off.

"I have a new plan."

"Yes, Mistress?"

"Nehame is supposed to reappear in one of the ancient temples, right?  And whoever meets Nehame when they come down will be their companions, right?"

"I don't know.  I suppose so."

"Then who's to say it couldn't be you or me, huh?  It's worth a shot, don't you think?"

"Yes, Mistress," he lied.  It was clear to him that she was in a foul mood, and he knew better than to contradict his owner whenever she was in such a state.  So, he held his tongue and followed her.


	3. Chapter 3

Kaitlynn had thought visiting the ancient temples would be easy.  She was very wrong. 

The divine hero, Nehame, came down from their heavenly realm in a ray of light, first landing in an ancient temple.  According to the most common version of the tale, there were three pilgrims in the temple that day, praying.  Nehame commanded them to follow, so they did, and they became the companions to the divine hero as he (as most tales referred to Nehame) went on a pilgrimage to several temples before destroying the shades that plagued the earth and saving the day. 

The problem was discovering _which_ temple Nehame had appeared in.  It had been about a thousand years since Nehame last appeared.  Important details had been lost.  Out of however many temples that were around when Nehame last appeared, over 50 were still around in some form or another.  It was a lot to go through.  Possibly the church knew which one Nehame might appear in, but they weren't telling.  There was a scholar at the university in Serradis who was trying to discover which one for himself, but for now he still had no clue.  At least he was willing to pay Kaitlynn decently for detailed notes and descriptions of the temples she visited, so coming to him wasn't a total waste.

Some of those 50+ temples were still in use.  Those weren't too bad to visit.  The main difficulty with most of those were the crowds.  At some point, she might have to try for the Salutari Nostrum, the oldest and holiest temple, located in the heart of Calcaeum, and the home of the Patriarch, the head of the faith.  It was impossible to go there without an invitation, so she ignored it for now

Several were abandoned.  Times changed, and cities moved, although not too far.  Most were still near populated places.  The real issue was that after civilized men moved out, new inhabitants moved in.  Many of the abandoned ones were now the haunts of orcs, shades, or other enemies, and so were dangerous to visit.  She had foolishly decided to take on one not too far from Vivere, only to find it was now the home of some crazed man who attacked them on sight.  Even though it was two to one, they barely survived, mostly due to her slave's skill.  He was the one who finished the man off while she flailed and panicked.  Fighting men and fighting shades were entirely different, it turned out.  It wouldn't have been so bad, if there had been some kind of payoff at the end, but there was nothing.  No treasure, no Nehame, no holy light shining down from above, nothing.  Fortunately, the crazed man turned out to be a fugitive from the city, so they at least received a substantial reward.

"I think we need a new plan," she was telling her slave as they walked back from the magistrate's estate, her pockets heavy with coin.  She still didn't trust the banks in this world, and never would, until they developed whatever the medieval fantasy equivalent to being FDIC insured was.

"What do you mean?"

"Like, I'm weirdly good at killing shades, but I suck at everything else.  And however good you might be, you're just one guy.  If we keep going to all these old temples, you'll get overwhelmed and killed.  And then I'll get killed.  We need more people.  Lots of old RPG games expect a party of 4, so at least two more."

"Oh, are you looking to buy more slaves?"

Kaitlynn yelped and jumped back at the voice, for the speaker was not her slave, but none other than the trader who sold him to her.  He had come up from behind and popped his head in between the two of them.

"You?!  Why are you here?"

"Many apologies for startling you, my lady.  I am here on business, the same as you."  He gestured behind him, where a line of several men, women, and orcs were chained together in a line.  "It is my custom to make my trade travelling across Isven, buying and selling stock as I go.  I happen to have some new stock acquired just recently; perhaps you would be interested?" 

"Honestly, I wasn't planning on buying any more slaves.  I was thinking of maybe hiring someone or finding someone to team up with."

He looked distressed.  "Oh, you don't want to do that!  It's far too risky.  Men who work for hire can't be trusted.  I've heard too many stories of good, honest men hiring some mercenary, only to be abandoned in the middle of a fight.  And partnerships with strangers are always dangerous.  No, you'd do much better with a slave.  I have some that would suit you perfectly; in fact, when I found them, I thought to myself, 'ah, I know just the lady who would be the perfect owner for these people!'  So please, come with me.  I'll even add in a nice discount for my favorite customer."

He, along with his merchandise, began walking in the direction of the slave market.  Kaitlynn looked over at her slave.  "Is this normal?"

"I don't know, Mistress.  He does seem very interested in you as a customer.  It wouldn't hurt to look, at least." 

So off they went to the slave market.

Vivere was a larger city than Serradis, where she'd first lived, so its slave market was also larger.  This one wasn't situated obnoxiously close to a church, but in the shadow of the mayor's home.  Not out of insult, though.  The city's founding mayor had earned his money through the slave trade.

In all important respects, it was structured much the same as the one she'd seen before. 

"Is it just me or are there a lot more orcs here?" she asked.

"You are correct, my lady!  The people of Vivere vastly prefer orcs over humans for cutting and hauling lumber, from which the city makes its money."

"Are you interested in orcs?  I have a young goblin that will be well-suited for you, I think.  Grunt, come here!"  he barked out the last command to a young orc male, who came running up to stand obediently beside the trader.

"Although originally chosen for lumber, many people in Vivere now prefer them for all other tasks usually given to slaves.  There's even a push to outlaw the enslavement of humans so that the roll only falls to orcs.  Unlike us, they are feeble-minded, lacking the intellectual capacity necessary independent life.  Although they are savage when found in nature, I have been assured that they are the most faithful and devoted slaves when raised under the guiding hand of a loving master."

"That all sounds super racist."

"Well, that is what the orc traders claim, and one must admit they have a vested interest in the matter.  For myself, my experience with orcs, though limited, has not shown them to be mentally inferior to humans.  Personally, I am against adding restrictions to slavehood.  I cannot believe God would make an entire race and condemn them to servitude, any more than I believe God intended for all humans to be masters.  We each must take charge of our own fates, and who's to say an orc may not one day rule over us all?"  He delivered his speech with a smile, while Kaitlynn just gave a blank stare the entire time.  Finally, she blinked and told him she needed companions to protect her when visiting old temples.

"You wish to make a pilgrimage, do you?"  He nodded knowingly.  "I think this boy will suit you.  His tribe were all captured or killed in retaliation for an attack on a village, and I'm told it took three men to bring this child down.  He can be quite fierce.  But if you have doubts," he stepped forwarded and lowered his voice conspiratorially, "I have a special slave, just for you."  He stepped back and shouted "Arturos!"

What stepped out of the slave pen was not a human or an orc, but a large black dog.  Kaitlynn didn't recognize the breed.

"This," the slave trader dropped his voice again, "is a shifter.  Have you heard of them?"  She shook her head, so he explained "A very secretive and dangerous tribe of sorcerers and witches.  They have the power to take the form of animals, as you see here.  They are notoriously fierce and cunning, and so hated and feared that they are forbidden to set foot in any village or town in Isven.  It is even forbidden to own one as a slave, for the law demands they be destroyed on sight.  Such a waste, don't you think?  I believe I can trust this one with you, but you must remember to keep his real identity secret, for it's worth both your lives."

"You trust me?  This is only the second time we've met."

"You forget, my lady:  I am a salesman by nature and by trade.  If you cannot judge a person's character instantly in this job, you can't make money.  This far along, I know to trust my own instincts.  I will sell you the boy and the dog for a discount.  You won't regret it!"

She was resistant, but he was as stubborn as she was.  The boy's competence at fighting was proved easily enough by pitting him against her own slave.  It was the dog she didn't trust.

"Look, if you want me to believe that's more than just a dog, I need some kind of proof."

"Gladly would I show you such, my lady, but there are too many eyes and ears about to do so here.  Even inside the dormitory it is not safe, for those buildings were designed to hold the slaves at night.  It would be unwise to make them soundproof.  A rebellion in the middle of the city would be too dangerous."

"Mistress," her own slave finally spoke up.  "I think you should just buy them both.  The price he's offering would be a good one for the goblin alone."

"You, too, huh?  Fine."  Feeling cheated, she bought the boy and the dog, and led them away.

"So, Grunt, is it?  That's your real name?" she asked the boy as they headed to an inn.

"It's what humans call me."  He kept his head down as he spoke, not looking at anyone.

"Okay.  Would you rather be called something else?"

He shook his head and continued to stare at the ground.

"How old are you, anyway?"  He was a head shorter than her, but he looked much younger, and orcs were generally larger than humans.

"Twelve."

"Oh.  _Oh_.  Oh, shit."  Her stomach, along with the rest of her organs, all dropped as the reality of what she had done sank in.  She just bought a child!  An actual, literal child, for the purpose of fighting monsters and criminals.  She was planning to take a young child into real danger.  Who does that?  What kind of a monster was she?  She could take him back, but he might end up with someone even worse than her.

"What kind of weapons can you use?  Do you know any ranged weapons?  Bows and arrows, slings, that sort of thing?"  Something that would keep him way in the back, as far away from danger as possible.

"I can use darts."

"Good, we'll go with that," she told him, patting his shoulder.

At the inn, after checking for peepholes, she turned her attention to her new dog.

"So, you're a shifter, huh?  Can you prove it?  Turn yourself back into a man.  I'll sell you for sausages if you can't."

Arturos suppressed a snarl at her tone.  Servitude, especially forced servitude, disgusted him, but he needed to obey her, at least for now.  He wasn't above small moments of rebellion, however, so he chose to transform before her eyes back into a man.  About halfway through she realized the wolf before her would now be a fully naked man.

"Strickland!  Strickland!" she shouted as she covered her eyes and turned away.  Two bouts of crushing pain coursed through him, sending him to the ground.  It was worth it.  "You jerk, don't show up naked in front of me!  I don't want to see that!"

"You asked me to transform," he growled, still on the floor.

"Well, you've done it, so hurry up and change back!" 

So, he did.  "It is done."  He waited for her to turn around before adding, "Since my nakedness is displeasing, I should like some clothes."

She nodded.  "Yeah, you should have Meatshield over here measure you and--wait, you can talk in dog form?  Why didn't you just do that instead?"

"You did not ask."

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she didn't call him out.

Well, that had been fun.  Probably unwise in the long run, but he'd be damned if he was going to just mindlessly obey some mere human.

She wasn't done with him yet.  "So why are shifters hated so much?"

"It's nothing more than fear.  We have power that humans do not fully understand, so they build us into something frightening and monstrous."

"Like what?"

The blond boy, standing near her, answered for him.  "They worship Amaut, who devours the world, and steal infants from their cradles to sacrifice in blood rituals."

"Nonsense," he snarled.  "We do not steal children, nor do we worship Amaut.  Those are nothing but tales used to frighten children."

The boy's eyes flared in anger, but the woman appeared unmoved.

"So, if your kind is supposed to be killed on sight how did you end up with the slave trader, anyway?"

He looked away.  "I could not be alpha."

"What does that mean?"

As Arturos refused to answer, the boy spoke up again.  "Mistress, I have heard that in their tribes, the leader is known as the alpha, while the one who advises him is called beta."

"And the omegas can get pregnant?"

"What?"  The bizarre question shocked him out of silence.  "No, we can't--why would you even think that?"

"Don’t' get so huffy.  Man, that's like one of the least offensive parts of those stories.  How are you going to handle the rest?"

"I don't want to know!"

She let out a short, sharp laugh.  "That's probably for the best.  Anyway, how does not being alpha lead to you becoming a slave?  Did you try to challenge the leader for the position and lose?"  Her eyes lit up.  "Wait, am I right?  Is that what happened?"

"How I got here is of no concern.  I now belong to you, forced to serve you faithfully, whether I will it or no."

"Fine, whatever.  So, you can do magic? --I'm not asking for a demonstration; a description is fine.  Can you shoot fireballs?"

"I don't know what that is."

"A fireball."  She gestured with her arms. "Literally a great big ball of fire that you throw at someone.  Can you do that?"

"No.  Magic is not so flashy as that.  I can change form, as you saw, conceal myself from enemies, heal minor injuries, things of that nature."  And things of a different nature as well.

"Could you teach me that stuff?"

"We do not share the secrets of our magic with outsiders.  To learn, you must join our tribe and forge a contract with Amaut.  Then you would wield magic as we do and be despised and hunted as we are."

"I thought you said you didn't worship Amaut."

"Do you worship the trader who sold you to me?  Or the blacksmith who forged you those weapons?  So it is with us and Amaut."

"That feels like a technicality to m--Wait."  She stared at him, one hand lifted, a finger raised, and held that pose for a few seconds.  "You never said you don't sacrifice babies.  Just that you didn't steal them."

He sighed.  "We do not sacrifice babies.  For the rituals to work, a sacrifice must be willing, and for most, it is safer to shed your own blood rather than someone else's.  Infants are useless for such purposes."

"Oh.  Ok.  That's reassuring, I guess."  She stood up.  "So, I guess the next thing to do is outfit you and the kid, and then figure out which temple I should visit next.  Do you fight better in dog or human form?"

"Temple?  You are on a pilgrimage?"

"Sort of.  I'm trying to find the temple Nehame came down in."

Arturos tried to conceal his excitement.  According to the legends of his own people, the false prophet had sealed away their powers in several temples before dying.  If he could access those powers, he could break free and return home.

To Kaitlynn he only asked, "if it would please you, I could offer some suggestions.  Several temples were built at the intersections of lines of power.  It is likely the false--that Nehame appeared in one of these.  I could point them out to you."

She tossed the map to the floor in front of him.

"Have at it."

*** * ***

As one of the temples Arturos suggested was not too far to the east of Vivere, and as she really had no particular order or plan in mind, Kaitlynn agreed to at least make the attempt.  There was nothing to keep her in the city, so the day after acquiring both Arturos and Grunt, the whole party set out to the east, with a new cart to hold everything.  There were twice as many people travelling now, with twice as much equipment, but the number of people who could actually carry everything remained the same.  Arturos could not help while in beast form, and Kaitlynn was reluctant to force a child to carry the same burden as an adult.  She didn't even want him walking the same distances as the adults and ordered him into the cart to rest whenever she thought he was struggling.

Giraunt, as he had been named by his father, did not feel much appreciation for her consideration.  He wasn't resentful so much as numb.  It didn't matter what she tried to do for him; she was a human, the same as the people who destroyed his village.

"Giraunt, you must be a man now and look after your sisters."  His mother's last words to him before she joined his father and the rest of the adults to defend their tribe.  A human blade split her skull in two; probably the same had happened to his father. 

He'd failed his mother.  He'd tried to hide Ayngie and Gunda, but the soldiers found them anyway.  He hadn't been able to stop the slave traders from separating him from his sisters, and he had no idea where they were, if they were alive or dead.

It was hard for him to sleep at night.  Nightmares weren't the problem.  How can someone have nightmares if they can't fall asleep in the first place?  Whenever he would lie down and close his eyes, images and sounds from that day filled his mind and he couldn't shut them out, preventing sleep.  Getting out of the city and into the countryside didn't help at all.

One night when they had made camp out in a field, his tossing and turning was interrupted by a voice.

"Is something wrong?"

It was the woman he had to serve from now on, crouching over him.  He didn't want to talk to her, so he shook his head and turned away.

She didn't leave.  "You can't sleep?"  He didn't answer.  "You know, I've heard that when you can't sleep, it's best to just give up trying and go do something else for a while.  You can join me by the fire, if you like."  He felt her stand up and leave.  After debating it a moment, he followed her.

They sat together in silence at first.  Then she asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"  He shook his head.  More silence.  "Do you want to be alone?"  He thought about it, but in the end shook his head again.

It was a warm night, so the fire was small, nothing more than what was still left after cooking dinner.  Kaitlynn idly poked at it with a stick from time. 

"This world really sucks, doesn't it," she asked.  "Everywhere I go, it's every man for himself, look out for number one, that kind of thing.  Those at the top got there because of hard work, everyone at the bottom is just lazy or a moocher.  Even the church gets in on it.  Slavery isn't bad because you've turned a person into property, it's bad because having servants makes you lazy.  Never rely upon other people.  What kind of nonsense is that?  Religion is supposed to tie people together, not tear them apart."

"It's not like that among Oryks."  It was normal for his people to help those within the tribe who needed it, for whatever reason.  Even that drunken layabout Erekush, who's laziness Giraunt's parents complained about daily, could count on dinner from them whenever he asked.

"Is it?  Must be nice.  Maybe if I'd run into you people first instead of humans, things would have turned out better."

"Master Caelum told me you were a great lady."

She laughed.  "Sure I am.  I used to live on the street, kid.  The people I met when I first came here stabbed me in the back and abandoned me.  I had to get by with literally nothing but the clothes on my back.  Nearly starved to death a few times, too.  There's no safety net in this world, and it's a long way down.  Everything I have now is just due to luck.  Hard to believe, isn't it?"  Kaitlynn stood.  "Well, if I can go from beggar to 'a great lady,' like you said, maybe there's a similar turnaround in store for you.  Good night."  She patted his shoulder and headed back into her bedroll.  After a while he crawled back into his.  He still didn't like her, or even trust her, but the mere act of speaking with her had lessened his resentment somewhat.  At least he had an easier time falling asleep that night.

A week of traveling brought them within sight of the temple.  For a thousand-year-old ruin, it was in remarkably good shape.  The roof was gone, and so was the glass in the windows, but all the walls were intact.  Even from a distance the statues and carvings could still just barely be seen.  It had once been quite grand, and even now was still impressive, if only for its size, but its days were numbered.  A forest had grown up near it, and the trees were already beginning to breach its borders.  Someday it would be swallowed up by them, just as the forest had already swallowed the foundations of the buildings that once surrounded it.

"Why are so many of these places abandoned?"  Kaitlynn wondered aloud.  They weren't just abandoned, they were in the middle of nowhere, away from any town or village.  Was this normal?  All the ruins she could think of from her own world were positioned closer to civilization, as best as she could recall.  Arturos had listed over a dozen temples that might be worth visiting.  None of them were still in use.

"When the false prophet sealed away his powers, he blocked the flow of power through the ley lines.  Humans may lack the wit to sense them consciously, but they were driven away by the change and built new homes along other lines.  The towns moved, but the churches remain."

"False prophet?"

"Forgive me.  I meant the divine hero summoned from heaven, the holy warrior Nehame."

"I don't give a shit about the religion here, so you don't have to be like that with me.  Why did you call her--or him, whatever--a false prophet?"

"Because Nehame preached nonsense.  Empty, feel-good philosophy.  He told the rich that they are in power as a reward for their hard work, and he told the poor that they, too, can become one of the rich the same way.  As if the world was so simple.  And because in the name of good, Nehame committed the gravest sin possible:  by preventing the world's destruction."

"That's a bad thing?"

"All things must come to an end.  Life dies and turns to rot, and in so doing it fosters new life.  The end of this world would have meant the start of a new one.  Instead, in preventing it, Nehame only forced this world to continue unnaturally, like an old man made to live past his prime, even after his strength, his health, his sight, and even his mind has failed.  What good is a life like that.  And yet that is the world we must live in, and we have all suffered for it."

"Things aren't like the good old days, huh?"

"The persecution of my people did not start until after Nehame left this world.  The Oryks once held a country of their own east of here.  This church was part of a fortress that guarded the border of Isven and the Oryk kingdom.  In the centuries since Nehame's passing Isven invaded and stole their lands, forcing the Oryks to live as homeless wanderers.  And you yourself cannot defend this world, for if you could, you would have already done so."

As they were walking towards the temple, he paused.  "We are not alone here."

"Are you sure?"  Kaitlynn couldn't see anything herself.

"There is someone else inside.  I can sense them.  Be careful."

She motioned for Grunt to come over.  "Hey, I need you to do something important for me, okay?  I need you to stay by the cart and keep an eye out for anyone who might come by, whether they're going into or out of the temple.  If you see anyone, you need to let us know, but don't start any fights on your own, you got that?  Good."

Leaving Grunt with the cart, the rest of them cautiously approached the temple.  The windows were too high up for any of them to peer through, so they went around the corner to the front.  There, they found a single horse, tied to a tree.

"So maybe it's just one guy?"  Kaitlynn suggested hopefully.  Neither of her companions answered, so she shrugged and crept inside.

This temple was laid out in much the same way as most of the others she'd seen.  The front doors led into a mid-sized room, separate from the main part of the church.  To the left and right were corridors going around the sides of the building, leading to offices and the priest's living quarters in the back.  In front was church proper, where people would gather and sit or stand before a large raised dais.  The dais was where the priest carried out his duties and delivered his sermons.

The entryway for this temple had cracks in the floor, and debris from the trees hanging overhead littered the floor.  The doors were long gone, so she could see straight to the dais, where a lone figure was kneeling.  Upon hearing Kaitlynn approach, the figure stood up and turned around.

And that was when Marius's mistress went mad.

"You!"  She yelled and charged straight for the man, sword drawn.  Never a great fighter to begin with, her blows were blinded by rage, so in spite of his surprise, the man was able to block and parry with relative ease. 

Marius and Arturos remained standing in the doorway. 

"Who is that man?"  Arturos asked.

Marius stared at the blond gentleman.  "I don't know.  I don't think I've ever seen him before."  Whoever he was, he was handsome and finely dressed, clearly a man of some importance.  So why was his mistress so determined to kill him?

The man didn't seem to know, either.  Between blows, he called out to her, asking her who she was, what he had done.

It only made her angrier. 

"Fuck you, Shen!"  She redoubled her efforts, but he managed to knock her back and onto the ground.  When she scrambled to get up, her eyes fell on Marius, still unmoving.  "Help me, you jerks!"

He was reluctant to attack a nobleman, but he did as he was ordered and tried his best.  The man was still a much better fighter than he and held him off easily.  Arturos fared worse, for the man viciously kicked at the wolf, sending him flying back.

"You're a slave?"  he asked, as if the collar wasn't obvious.

Before Marius could answer, Kaitlynn charged Shen again.  This time, he aimed his fist at her throat, sending her back to the ground coughing and struggling to breathe.  She lost her grip on her sword and it clattered onto the dais.

He turned back to Marius and began to speak quickly.  "Listen to me:  I can help you.  She can't use the command word right now, so you can escape!  My family can take off your collar and help you get away.  You'll be free!"

Arturos was still on the ground, struggling to get up.  Kaitlynn was partially up, clutching her throat, trying and failing to call out to him.  If he was going to run, he had to do it now.

But why should he run?  He'd grown up a slave and knew no other way to live.  To him the state was natural and right, and so when confronted with the chance for freedom, he froze.

"What are you doing?  Hurry!"  Shen stepped forward and grabbed his arm, pushing him towards the entrance.  There was a faint sound, and in surprise, Shen put his hand to his neck.  A dart was sticking out. 

At the entrance, charging towards them, was Grunt.

*** * ***

When the first sounds of fighting reached him, Giraunt stayed by the cart.  It shamed him to admit it, but he was afraid.  The last (and only) battle he had witnessed had been the one that destroyed his tribe, and he did not want to be forced into another so soon.  He wasn't ready.

But staying outside, alone, not knowing what was happening, was worse, so he grabbed his darts and ran to the church. 

Knowing didn't make him feel any better.  Kaitlynn and Arturos were already down on the ground, leaving only Marius to deal with the stranger.  If the three of them couldn't defeat the man together, what help could Giraunt offer?

Then he saw the man's face.  It was one he couldn't forget, for he and two others had led the assault on his tribe.  They had overseen the aftermath, as he and his sisters and all the other survivors were rounded up and sold into slavery.

Rage welled up within him, but he had enough control of his senses to load his blowgun and shoot one of his darts before his anger overwhelmed him completely.  He got lucky and hit the man in the neck.  His darts weren't loaded with deadly poison, but they would slow their target down for a while.  With a scream of rage, he ran at the man, who tried to ready his sword and shield to oppose him.  Marius chose that moment to attack, and while the man was distracted, Giraunt leaped onto him and pummeled him with his fists, for he had no other weapons. 

Behind him, Kaitlynn gestured wildly at Arturos, then her throat.  Limping, he came over to her and circled around her, chanting a spell that eased the pain enough for her to speak and breathe.

Giraunt fought like one possessed as she and Marius pulled him off the man.  "No!  Stop!  He killed them!"  But he couldn't stop him, and together they pinned him to the floor.

"Hey, kid, calm down," Kaitlynn shook him.  He stopped fighting but glared up at her in hatred while she looked back at Marius.  "Grab some rope and tie that guy up, okay?"  She helped Giraunt sit up.  "You calm now?  Everything's fine now, see?"

"No!  He killed them!"

"Killed who?"

"Everyone.  My parents.  The elders.  Before the sun was up, when everyone was still asleep, they attacked us.  They burned everything.  It's his fault!"

"Really."  Kaitlynn got up and approached Shen, who already had his hands bound behind him.  "I did hear you guys murdered a whole village of orcs not too long ago.  You have anything to say for yourself?"

Shen tried to speak, but the dart's poison had numbed much of his face, making it difficult for him to speak clearly.

"Never mind, we'll find out after the poison's worn off.  But this really is too good of a coincidence.  Hey, Arturos!  You got any beef with this guy?  Or maybe his friends, Roman and Rialla?  They're pretty famous, so you must have heard of them."

"He's one of _them_?"  Marius cried out in anguish.  "Shen Surral?  You made us fight Lord Shen Surral?  Do you know what you've done?  What will happen to us?"

"I have never met any of them before," added Arturos, "but I have heard of them.  He travels with Lord Roman Alteus and Rialla Guilleche, does he not?  Humans view them as the three chosen companions of Nehame.  Their families are powerful.  Unless you want the whole country against you, you had better kill this man now.  Let no one know what we've done today."

"Oh, we'll kill him eventually," she agreed.

Giraunt was unsatisfied.  "Why wait?  Why not now?"

"You want revenge, don't you, kid?"  He nodded.  "If we kill him now, do you really think you'll feel better?  Trust me, you won't.  He'll be dead, but you'll still be in pain, because killing him can't wipe out the memories of what he did or take back what you lost.  Trust me, I've thought about this a lot.

"But what might actually make you feel better would be for him to acknowledge that what he did to you was wrong, that he was wrong, and for him to beg you for your forgiveness.  That's what you need:  to have all that pain and misery inside you be validated, to know that you were right, and he was wrong.  But it'll take time and effort for him to get to that point, so we have to help him."

"How?"

She brightened.  "When I was younger, I had a passing interest in psychology--the fun parts of psychology, like brainwashing and stuff, so I know what to do. The first thing we need to do is never let him sleep, ever.  That will make him miserable and loopy.  And we'll still feed him, but no meat.  Apparently if you do hard labor and don't take in enough protein, your body starts cannibalizing your brain or something and it makes it hard to think clearly.  Never letting him know what time of day it is can also drive a person crazy, but that's not really feasible for us to pull off. Constantly bombarding him with repetitive noise, like the same song over and over, is also supposed to work, but I don't know how to pull that off without driving the rest of us crazy.  There's lots of other methods, but I've heard that sleep deprivation is one of the better ones. But the first two we can do, and while doing that we can let him know what he's done wrong, constantly."

"He just has to stay awake?  We can't beat him up?"

"There's no point.  Physical torture usually isn't as effective, and if you beat up or stab someone who can't fight back, everyone will call you a monster.  But the psychological stuff--the damage lasts longer, but there's no physical scars, so no one can prove that it happened, and usually even if people do believe the victim's story, they won't be sympathetic.  If they don't know how easy it is to mess with someone's head, they'll just think 'but they didn't even hit you,' or 'he must be weak to fall for that,' or 'why didn't he just leave?'  See?  This way people won't go against us.  They'll actually take our side and defend us!"

Giraunt was suspicious of this method.  He'd rather just keep hitting the man.  Marius looked worried. 

Arturos simply said, "You should join my tribe someday.  You would do well there."

"I'll take that as a compliment."  Kaitlynn stepped onto the dais to retrieve her sword.  As she did so, she felt a tremor through her feet.

The dais started glowing.

It happened so fast.  While she stood in bewilderment, the stone beneath her lit up from within, and what felt like a breeze surged up around her.  She had a vision of feathers whirling around her, the tone of a bell, and then, as the feathers converged on her, they faded, and with them went the bell and the glow.  The dais turned back into inert gray stone.

Everyone was staring at her in shock.  Arturos jumped up onto the dais with her, sniffing and scratching at the stone.

"You!  What was that?  What did you do?"

"Nothing!"

He growled.  "Do you feel anything?  Has anything changed?"

Kaitlynn opened her mouth to answer, then stopped.  Slowly, looking distracted, she raised one hand.  A sudden flurry of feathers whirled around her and spread out from her, flinging Arturos off the dais.

"Sorry!  I didn't mean to push so hard!  Are you okay?"  Kaitlynn raced off after him.  Getting up on his own, he shrank away from her.

"I'll live."

"What was that?"  Marius called out from Shen's side.  "What just happened?"

Beneath him, Shen was shaking his head in disbelief.  "Can't be," he gasped. 

Kaitlynn walked over and crouched before him.  "Why not?  Your buddy told you who I was right at the start, didn't he?  Bet you're regretting a few things right about now."

"Mistress, what do you mean?  What's going on?"

She stood to face them all.  With a dramatic flourish, she bowed.  "May I introduce to you, the returning Hero of Destiny, the great and holy warrior Nehame!"


	4. Chapter 4

"So, what happened to your friends?"

They decided to spend the night in the temple.  Marius and Grunt set up camp within the temple walls, while Arturos watched over their prisoner.  Kaitlynn practiced her new powers, testing the range and speed of the barrier she could put up.

"How are you able to work it?"

She glanced up.  Arturos had wandered over to her.

"I don't know.  It just seems to come by instinct.  Convenient, no?"

"That is not how magic works."

"Well, this isn't magic, it's divine or whatever.  Special powers from a heavenly being and all."

"Why did it come to you?  Just setting foot on the stone should not have been enough to break the seal."

"I'm Nehame, remember?  According to the prophecies, anyway."

He snorted.  "It's too easy.  There must be something more." 

Kaitlynn agreed, but to her mind there was no point in worrying about it just yet.  They could look for answers once they made it back to the city.

By evening, the poison had worn off enough for Shen to speak.  He was kneeling, bound and stripped of his armor, while Kaitlynn sat cross-legged on the dais.  She hadn't been able to make it light up again.

Shen glared at her.  "We decided it would be best to travel separately for a while."

"So, they're not around?  That's too bad."  Holding out her hand, a large white feather whirled around her and disappeared.  She'd been doing that on and off all afternoon.  "Anyway, you mind explaining what you did to Grunt's people?  Murdering women and children, selling them into slavery...very heroic."

"You have no right to say that!  And, besides, it wasn't my idea.  I was against it from the beginning."

"That's a shock.  Didn't expect you to be so soft-hearted."

"I mean the slavery.  My family as always opposed the practice.  No one with the name Surral has relied on slaves."  His back straightened as he spoke.

"How nice for you.  If you were really so opposed, why'd you get involved at all?"

"They were threatening a village.  We were asked to stop the orcs.  Things...went out of hand.  There has been a lot of bad blood between humans and orcs."  He spoke as if that explained everything.

"Well, Grunt?  Is what he says true?"

"Some men from the human village attacked one of Markash's daughters.  Grien wanted the men handed over for a trial, but the village wouldn't give them to us."

"So, you were going to attack the village because of that?"

"I don't know.  My parents didn't say, but they wouldn't let me and my sisters go out of sight.  They only do that when they think there's going to be trouble."

"I think I'm going to have to side with the orcs on this one."

"You would put that much faith in the word of an orc?  And a child, no less?"

"Yeah, I would.  He's not the one who hangs out with rapists."

"I've never--” Shen’s eyes narrowed.  "I thought I knew you."

"Oh, you remember me finally?  I'm surprised, I was only with you guys for about a day."

"Do you know how much trouble you caused?  Rialla was always suspicious of Roman after that.  The two of them were always fighting, constantly, because of you!"

"Me?  The person you should be blaming is Roman, don't you think?"

"I know him.  He is fond of women, but he would never force himself on anyone.  He doesn't need to.  If you hadn't gotten yourself drunk and came ont--"

"Drunk?  _You_ made me drink!  I wasn't going to have anything, but you kept bugging me to try it!"

"I didn't tell you to drink beyond your own limits, now did I?  You did that all on your own!  You're a spoiled child, blaming everyone around you instead of owning up to your own mistakes!  And you're still pretending to be the divine hero Nehame.  As if anyone would believe you."  He spat at her.

Kaitlynn summoned her barrier again, sending Marius, Arturos, and Grunt scrambling as she violently forced Shen to the floor.  As it faded, she held up her hand.  In her palm stood the image of a feather made of light.

"This is Nehame's symbol, isn't it?  Even a heathen like me managed to pick up on that much.  I first appeared in an ancient temple, just like Nehame.  I have three companions, just like Nehame.  I even have the power of protection, just like Nehame.  In what way am I not fit?"

"What kind of hero relies on slaves to do all their work for them?"

He didn't answer, and in a sudden fit of rage she kicked him.  And then kicked him again.  And again, and again, until Marius grabbed her and pulled her back.

"Mistress, you said we weren't to hurt him!"

She struggled, and he was afraid he was going to lose his grip on her when she suddenly went limp.  Carefully, he let go of her.  She made no move to attack again.

"I'm going to go for a walk."  Marius thought she looked incredibly tired.  She waved vaguely in the direction of the others.  "Go set up dinner or something.  Try not to rough Shen up too much."

Marius watched her as she left.  His mistress was upset, and while usually it was a bad idea to bother one's owner when they were in a foul mood, he felt this time was different.  The Surral family, was wealthy without having to rely on slaves and had strong ties both to the church and the king.  They would not let anyone harm one of their own without punishment.  If he couldn't get Kaitlynn to end her feud with Shen, they'd have to do as Arturos suggested and do away with him.  Even if Marius was comfortable with the prospect of murdering a bound, unarmed man, it was too risky an act.  So, he left Grunt to handle dinner and followed Kaitlynn.

She was walking rapidly through the clearing near the front of the temple, full of nervous energy.  At any moment she seemed likely to break into a run, and Marius had to run himself to catch up with her.  He was afraid it might send her flying, but she stopped and waited for him when she heard his approach.

"What is it?"

He hesitated, unsure how best to broach the subject.  He hadn't come out with a specific plan.  He didn't want to risk angering her.  While he tried to come up with a way to start, she spoke again.

"I've forgotten your name.  What is it?"

This was not something he had expected.  "It's Marius, Mistress."

"Marius.  I'll try to remember it from now on."  There was another moment of silence before she continued.  "For what it's worth, I'm glad you didn't run away when Shen offered.  Don't get me wrong," she added hastily, "I'm not stupid.  I doubt you really did it out of any loyalty to me.  Still, I don't think we'd have been able to defeat him otherwise.  So, I'm grateful."

"I am your loyal servant, Mistress.  I would never do anything that would go against my master's desires."

She stared at him.  "Don't you resent that kind of life?  Wouldn't you rather live for yourself?  You can speak honestly.  I won't get mad."

"Everyone has their role in life, Mistress.  Mine is to serve.  To resent my fate would be like resenting the sun for rising in the morning and setting in the evening.  Where I am is where I'm meant to be."

"So, even if I offered you freedom right here and now, you wouldn't want it?"

"Mistress, that's not possible.  Slaves cannot be freed without permission from the state.  You can only transfer me from one owner to another, otherwise." 

"That's ridiculous.  You're my property, I should be able to do what I want with you."

"If you release me, I then become a citizen.  Freeing slaves must be regulated, or else a rich owner might release hundreds of slaves within a region all at once.  So many new men and women, used to having their needs provided for by their masters, roaming the streets uncontrolled in search of jobs and housing, would cause problems for the citizens already living and working there.  It would be chaos." 

"Like a caravan full of immigrants crossing over the border."

"Yes, exactly."  He was glad she understood.

Her next words made his stomach drop.  "It was a mistake to buy you."

"What? Why?  What have I done wrong?"

"No, not like that.  I mean it was wrong to buy you as a slave in the first place.  All of you."

"You don't mean to sell us, do you?" 

"That wouldn't solve anything.  If I was decent, I'd free all three of you.  It's hard, though.  Even though I know I should, I don't want to do it."

"Mistress, I would rather you not.  I'm happy to serve you."  He wasn't lying.  She was not a perfect master, but still a good one, and if he was sold, odds were his new master would be much worse.  And if he was freed...he couldn't even think of that.  What would he do with himself?  How would he live?

"Lucky for you that I can't, then.  At least, not easily."  She leaned against a nearby tree, crossed her arms, and looked away from him. 

Marius felt at a loss.  He'd said something wrong, but he wasn't sure what, or why.  Her sudden abolitionist talk made little sense to him. 

"Mistress, is this because of Lord Surral's words?  You shouldn't mind what he says.  He doesn't know you.  I do.  You work hard and pull your own weight as much as you can."

"This isn't because of him.  Not really, anyway.  At best, he just reminded me of what right and wrong are."

He decided to change the subject.  "Mistress, you have a grudge against Lord Surral."

"No, really?  What was your first clue?"

He chose to ignore that.  "If it's not too bold to ask:  what is your history with him?  What you have done is a serious crime--if he's harmed you, isn't there a better way?  Just what did he do to anger you?"

At first, she didn't answer, just stared at him.  Just when he was about to give up and retreat, she sighed.  "I'm not from Isven originally, you know."

"I suspected as much."

"Honestly, I don't know how I got here.  One minute, I was hanging out with friends, and the next, I was in the middle of some old ruins, lying on a block of stone just like the one back in there.  Those three heroes everyone loves so much found me, and their idiot leader for some reason decided that I must be Nehame returned.  I told them I had no idea what they were talking about, but since I had nowhere to go really, I followed them to the nearby village.  There..." she trailed off and looked away.  "Well, I don't remember exactly what happened, and to be honest I don't want to remember.  At any rate, the next day everyone accused me of seduction and put the blame all on me, and not the guy who decided to cheat on his girlfriend with a black-out drunk teenager.  That's why my hair is so short and my ear's all torn up.  It's their fault."

Marius personally did not see how it was anyone's fault but his mistress's.  After all, he agreed with the values of this world.  But he knew better than to say that out loud.  And the truth of the matter made little difference to him.  She was a wealthy and powerful woman, in a feud with other wealthy and powerful people.  It was not his place to judge, only mitigate the damage if he could.  Besides, it was normal for the wealthy to settle blame everywhere but where it was deserved.

"Do you intend to kill him over this?"

"I've thought about it.  I wanted to kill all three of them for so long.  Some days, it felt like the only thing I was living for.  But it turns out I'm not so far gone I'm willing to kill someone in cold blood.  And he honestly isn't the worst of the three."

"What will you do, then?"

"Dunno.  If I can't find another way, I might have to kill him in the end after all."

"I hope that does not come to pass."

She didn't answer.  After a bit she held out her hand, making the feather of light appear and disappear, over and over.

"Mistress, about what you said earlier...."

"Which thing?"

"Do you truly believe you are the Divine Hero, Mistress?"

"No, I don't think so.  I don't know.  I don't feel like any kind of hero.  But then there's this," and she held out her hand, flashing the feather of light.  "I can't be the first person to walk on that thing.  Something must have set it off to give me.  Maybe it was on a timer, and I just happened to be the first person to walk on it after the timer ran out."  She laughed.  "Just think:  if things had gone a little differently, it could have been someone else.  Like Shen.  Or you."

"I think that's a matter better left to the church fathers, Mistress."

"I guess.  No one wanted to talk to me when I first came here.  Maybe they'll be willing to listen to me now that I've got superpowers."  She stood up from the tree.  "Anyway, when's dinner?"

*** * ***

Lord Shen Surral shifted uncomfortably in his position.  The ropes binding his hands and feet were tied a little too tight, but he was too proud to try to convince his captors to loosen them.  They'd used a length of rope to tie him to a pillar, so he could move around an area of two to three feet, but with his legs bound and his hands tied behind him, it didn't offer him much freedom.  The wolf, a goddammned shifter of all things, had walked around him in a circle, muttering nonsense.  It refused to explain exactly what it was doing, only that it would help keep him from escaping.

They had decided to watch over him in shifts to prevent him from sleeping.  The goblin would watch over him during the day, while Kaitlynn, her slave, and the shifter taking turns during the night.  It was ridiculous.  He couldn't see how a lack of sleep would break him.  Just what kind of weakling did she take him for?  She was going to regret this.

He should have told Roman where he was going.

Tensions between the three of them had been building for some time, even before that bitch came and ruined everything.  Roman had been obsessed with the prophecy of Nehame and his own ancestry since childhood, and when shades started attacking people, he had a vision in which a divine messenger told him it was his destiny to find the returned Nehame, and so set out immediately.  Shen had naturally gone along.  They had been friends since their early childhood, after all.  Rialla also joined them.  Probably she saw it as a way to strengthen her relationship with Roman and put herself ahead of all the other women vying for his attention.  The man meant well but had no sense whatsoever.  Shen warned him he was going to get himself into trouble someday.  He _did_ get himself into trouble, as a matter of fact.

At first, Roman eagerly set out to visit every single temple they came across, whether in use or abandoned, in the hopes of meeting Nehame.  Along the way they offered whatever help they could to the people they met.  After that mess, there was a shift.  They still travelled and looked for people in trouble, but that became the main focus.  Visiting temples was an afterthought. 

It had driven Shen crazy.  He had duties and responsibilities that he had set aside to go on this crazy quest.  What was the point of continuing if they weren't trying to finish it?

The raid on the orc tribe had been the final straw.  Shen had been against it from the start.  It was a job best left to soldiers, not random adventurers.  But Roman had insisted.

The mood among the villagers and their assembled militia had been ugly.  Understandable, for a people in living in fear of raids from savages.  He hadn't realized how that would influence them to act in the battle.  While he and his friends were fighting actual warriors, several villagers looped around and fell upon the camp from behind, slaughtering women, children, the sick, the aged, everyone who had been left behind.  And those who weren't killed were sold off as slaves. 

It had made him sick.  So, he left.  Not peacefully, but in anger, after a huge shouting match with Roman.  Unsure of what to do next, and unwilling to admit to failure by heading home, he decided to try a pilgrimage of his own.  One of his cousins, a man high in the church, had given them a map detailing likely temples to visit back at the start of their journey.  He had taken the map with him and had headed for the nearest one.

Now he was a prisoner to a vengeful madwoman, a pretender to the title of Divine Hero.  And no one knew where he was.  How long would it take for anyone to realize he was missing?

The boy, Marius, had the first shift of the night.  Out of all of them, he was the only one likely to see reason.  Shen assumed it would be easy.  The first thing the boy had done was check and loosen Shen's bonds.  Not enough for him to be able to free himself, but enough to allow the blood to circulate, so the lad must have some sympathy for him already.  The boy seemed timid, it was true, but surely it galled him to work alongside a shifter and a goblin, as if they were equals.  No one could be happy in such a position.

He tried to wait until he was certain everyone else was asleep.  He was several yards away from their tents, but he didn't want to risk being overhear. It was agony for him, forced to stand there in silence (sitting had been forbidden for him) and guess at the passage of time.  In the end his patience wore out.

"Hey, boy, where are you from?  You look too well-born to be a slave."

Marius answered promptly and willingly.  "You flatter me, my lord.  My parents were poor farmers.  They couldn't afford to feed all their children, so when a passing nobleman, Lord Eristen, took a fancy to me and asked to buy me, they put me into his service."

"God, him?" The man, and more specifically his tastes, was notorious.  "But how did you end up with her?"

"My former master ran up debts he needed to pay. I was sold to Master Caelum in Serradis, who sold me to my current mistress.  And whatever you might think of her, she has been a good master to me."

"It wouldn't take much to be better than Eristen.  A master is supposed to look after the well-being of their slaves.  You can't praise her for doing what's expected."

"I don't.  She treats me with more respect than someone like me deserves and asks for and values our opinions.  She does not rely on us to do what she should be able to accomplish on her own.  At times I think she forgets our relative positions."

"Is that so?  Does she do the same for the shifter and the goblin?"

He hesitated.  "Yes, she does."  _Ah-hah_ , Shen thought. 

"And you're happy with that?  Being put on the same level as an ogre and a criminal?"

"It's not my place to question my master.  She manages us as she sees fit."

"But you're better than them!  Look at you:  you could pass for a rich man's son.  You deserve better than to toil alongside lowlifes like that."  He leaned closer.  "The head of a shifter brings a lot of reward money.  Enough to start a new life.  Think of it:  you wouldn't be forced to live at someone else's whim.  No need to get your hands dirty with crime, the way you are now--trust me, my family is powerful.  They'll find out what you've done to me and they won't let any of you get away with it.  But if you help me, I can make sure you'll be rewarded.  I know how to remove your collar.  I could do it right now, if you untie me."

He'd hoped to tempt the boy, but the only response received was rejection.  "I am not a fool, my lord.  I don't know what my mistress hopes to accomplish by holding you prisoner, but I won't go against her by freeing you."

"You don't know?"  He laughed.  "You think she's going to let me go at the end of this?  My blood will be on your hands, even if you don't wield the knife."

"She is angry and upset with you, my lord.   She might calm down and regret her actions later."

"Do you really believe that?"

"It is possible.  If I may be so bold, my lord, I think it would be best for you not to fight her as she is now.  Let her rage and wait for the storm to pass, then beg for her forgiveness.  That is usually the best way."

"I will not act like a spineless slave."

"Of course, you may do as you judge best.  It was advice, nothing more."

In the end he made no progress with Marius that night.  Well, he consoled himself, these things take time.  He couldn't expect to win over anyone the first night.

The shifter had second watch.  Shifters were an untrustworthy people, notorious liars and backstabbers.  Legends claimed they could see into the hearts of men.  It was why they often used to serve as advisors and judges, long ago.  There was no point in trying to win him over, so he stayed silent.  Unfortunately, the shifter wanted to talk to him.

"No words for me?  I'm not worth talking to, unlike the eunuch, I take it?"

"I don't talk to monsters."

"Ah, yes, defiler of women, ruiner of crops, stealer of babies.  I've heard it all before.  If it makes you feel better, I haven't done any of those things.  Yet."  It started pacing in a circle around him. 

"The Scion of Alteus and his companions are well-known.  I often wondered what they were like, what kind of people they were.  I must say, you are just as I expected."

Shen remained silent.  There was a challenge in the beast's voice, daring him to comment on the ambiguity in his words.  It was only trying to get a rise out of him.

"You remind me of someone I once knew, back when I still lived among my tribe.  A brash young man, who believed with all his heart, that he was destined for great things, to be the chosen one who would lead his people into glory, out of the shadows, no longer hunted and despised.  Full of hubris, he challenged his tribe's leader for control, and lost.  Someone else will have to save my people now."  He stopped, as if waiting for a response, but none came.

"I was not pleased to be made a slave, you know," he began again.  "It is in my people's nature to serve the alpha, but only the alpha.  No random person will do.  I will serve a leader I can respect, or none at all.  This woman I've been sold may not be alpha, but I think I could respect her, at least a little.  It's hard to look down on the one destined to be the savior of the world, no?"

It was too much.  "She's a fraud."

"Is she?  It's a neat trick she's learned, to make stones glow and feathers appear and disappear at will.  I should make her teach it to me.  But it's odd that you deny her divine status so strongly.  You set out to find the divine hero, did you not?  And so, it seems you have found her.  You should be pleased.

"Perhaps you think she is not qualified?  I am not of your faith, so I don't rightly know how one is to identify Nehame when he returns.  I know that he promised to return in a different form, so it cannot be her appearance you reject.  Her character, perhaps?  I confess I have only known her a week, which is no time at all know her well enough to judge.  You, I suppose, have known her for much longer, perhaps?  A month?  A year?  Maybe more, to be so certain.

"No answer?  To tell the truth, I think you reject her because she is not the hero you wanted.  Or maybe you never wanted to find the hero at all.  Without Nehame, you can go adventuring with your friends forever, and be praised and adored everywhere you go, telling yourself you are doing something good and real, as if the deeds you perform aren't as ephemeral as you are.  Shades are born out of the failures of men.  If the world was improved, they would vanish.  But that would take years of effort, and no one would thank you for it."

Shen was relieved when the shifter's turn was over, even if it meant dealing with her.  She didn't try to speak to him, just crossed her arms and glared at him.

"Don't you have something to say?"

"No point."

"You had plenty to say to me earlier."

"And I'll have plenty to say to you later.  But right now, there's no point."

"So, you're just going to stand there and sulk, is that it?  Just like a child.  What do you hope to accomplish with this?  I'm not going to come around to your side, no matter what.  I've known Roman since we were children, and I'll defend him to the ends of the earth."

"You know him, huh?  In my world, there was a woman who worked alongside a very charming, kind man.  She thought he was great.  A good potential boyfriend for her daughter, if their ages had been closer.  He talked people out of suicide, helped make pamphlets on rape prevention, all sorts of good deeds.

"Turns out he was also a murderer.  He'd go around and pretend to be injured and in need of help, and when he managed to lure a girl away, he'd kill her and rape her corpse.  In the end he confessed to about 30 murders, but most people think he was responsible for more.  I'll bet the woman who worked with him thought she knew him well, too."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, it's true.  Men are two-faced.  I've seen it lots of times here, back when I was living in the gutter.  There are plenty of rich men with good reputations, who do all sorts of terrible things when no one important is looking."

"Roman isn't like that.  He's not perfect, I'll admit to that, but he's not someone who would ever choose to do something so monstrous."

"I imagine he wouldn't consciously choose it; I think most men who guilty of sexual assault don't think of themselves as rapists.  I know how men think.  It's hard not to, when so much of the world is viewed through your eyes.  When it comes to sex, you never really think about the person you're with.  All that matters is that you're getting it.  Doesn't matter if she complains, or if she's reluctant, if she protests, if she begs or pleads or cries, or even if she fights back--as long as you can get her to stop saying no at some point, you're golden.  If she gives you a yes ever, it doesn't matter how late in the game she gave it or what you did to get it, it makes everything you did retroactively okay, and you don't have to feel guilty about what you did.  And it doesn't even have to be a yes.  She just has to stop saying no and that will count the same as a yes.  I'll bet that's what your friend was thinking.  And I doubt I'm the first.  What about you?  Can you honestly say you've never pressured a girl into sleeping with you?  That you never frightened or intimidated someone younger than you, or was lower than you?  Don't tell me you've never gone after a servant girl before.  Did she really want your attention, or was she just afraid she'd be fired if she said no?  How hard and how long did you have to chase her before she gave in?  Because unless you're somehow miraculously a virgin, I'd bet money you're just as guilty as you friend."

"I'm not!"  So he said, but even as he spoke, doubt flickered in his mind.  When younger, he had pursued some of the young maids in his family's estate.  They had liked him back well enough, hadn't they?  It was years ago, and his mind was slow from the lack of sleep.  Surely he hadn't done anything wrong.  He never got into trouble for it, and the girls never seemed to avoid him.  He wasn't a monster.  He hadn't done anything wrong.

If only those girls (or anyone, really) were there to tell him so.

*** * ***

By morning, Shen was tired, but he'd spent nights without sleep before.  This was nothing he couldn't handle.  And the speeches from his captors were obnoxious, but hardly capable of affecting him.  When Kaitlynn walked up to him with his breakfast and asked him how he was, he spat at her.  In response, she slowly and deliberately tipped his bowl over, spilling its contents onto the floor.  He'd gone without meals before, too.

They tied him to the back of the cart and set off, forcing him to walk behind the cart while the goblin sat in the cart and watched over him.  The others walked beside the cart, so the pace wasn't impossible for him.  Periodically one would raise a skin of water to his mouth.

Unfortunately, the brat kept talking and wouldn't shut up.

"Ayngie's really good with a bow.  She wasn't old enough to really be using one, but Erekush made her one secretly and taught her how to use it," he was telling Kaitlynn. 

"Erekush?"

"He's the brother of my aunt's husband.  Mom and Dad never liked him, he's lazy and drinks all the time...or he did, anyway."

"And he made your sister a weapon when she wasn't supposed to have one."

"Yeah, they were real mad when they found out.  But they were surprised she was able to string it, so they made a better one for her and taught her how to use it properly, so she ended up being real good at hunting rabbits and squirrels.  I mean, not as good as me, but pretty good for a little kid."

"Oh, of course.  Any other siblings?"

"There's Gunda.  She's really little, her tusks haven't even grown in yet.  She'd stay close to Ayngie when she wasn't with our mother.  Ayngie hated it, because she never got any time alone, and she'd follow her even when she was trying to play with her friends and get in the way.  I think it served her right, since she used to always follow me around."  His shoulders slumped.  "I miss them."

"What happened to them?"

"We were separated by the slave traders.  I don't know where they are."

"But they're still alive, right?  So, you might be able to see them again, someday.  Next time I meet the slave trader I can ask him how to track them down."

"And then what?"  Shen asked.  "Even if you find them, they'll still be slaves.  They can't leave their master."

"I have money.  I can buy them.  I don't really like the idea of putting any more money into the slave trade, but it would be fastest way to reunite them."

"It's a little late for you to be having regrets there.  Besides, there's no guarantee their master would be willing to sell them.  What then?"

"Then I'll have to think of something else.  But we wouldn't be at this point in the first place if you hadn't destroyed Grunt's tribe."

"That was not my doing.  It wasn't supposed to go that far."

"Really?  You never had any idea, no hint whatsoever, of what would happen?  Just how far were things supposed to go, anyway?  What did you think was going to happen?"

"We were just supposed to drive them off.  They're nomads, they don't own the land."

"I don't think you needed to attack them in their beds to manage that.  A simple 'leave now' with an army behind you should have sufficed."

"That was my suggestion, but we were told it wouldn't be enough."

"And you just blindly believed them?  I've seen how people talk about orcs, you never thought that maybe their bigotry was influencing them?"

"They lived there!  They were the ones who had been dealing with the orcs firsthand!  I assumed they would know more than us!"

"So, you didn't bother to investigate it on your own and ignored all the red flags the villagers might have been giving off, all so you could have a chance at glory and fame.  How noble."

The entire day was like that, and worse.  He had to listen to the brat talk about everyone in his tribe that he knew, and she made him describe the adults in detail.  His mother was the best carver in the tribe, put flowers in all her work, loved to sing even though she was terrible at it, was "real pretty" (by orc standards, he supposed), and wore her hair in braids with bright blue beads at the ends.  His father had a broken tusk caused by a wild boar before Grunt was born, was fond of giving riddles to his children, and it was usually he who gave in and gave Erekush extra food, or supplies, or even money when he came begging.  Erekush himself got along well with children and would help them play pranks and loved to dress flamboyantly.  His armor was dyed yellow and decorated with colorful ribbons, for example.

That sounded familiar.  He remembered fighting an orc with brightly colored armor.  That battle ended with the orc's head almost entirely severed from its body.  Once he recalled that fight, it wouldn't leave his mind.  The goblin's mother, father, aunts, uncles, neighbors--had he seen them during the battle?  Had he fought an orc with a broken tusk?  Had he seen a female orc with blue beads in her hair?  Sometimes he thought he had not seen them, other times he thought he might have.  He went back and forth on the matter, until he couldn't tell which was his real memory and which was imagination.

Shades attacked them during the day.  There were at least half a dozen of them in the form of both humans and beasts.  They were surrounded and outnumbered, even before you counted out the goblin and the woman.  He couldn't see either being able to contribute to the fight. 

Tugging desperately at his bonds, he turned to Kaitlynn to try to convince her to let him loose to fight, only to see her fell one in a single blow.  The goblin stayed in the cart, dagger ready in case they got close, while she and Marius went after the shades.  Even the shifter dispelled a few with magic.  It was over almost in an instant, and he stood there in amazement, blinking, while she ran around and picked up coins dropped by the shades.

"Is it really worth it to pick up pennies?"  Marius asked.

"It all adds up eventually.  And look, one dropped a ring." 

Shen was still staring at her.  "You couldn't handle shades before."

She looked askance at him.  "None of you gave me a weapon to protect myself with back then.  Great escorts, you were."

Was that all?  He had seen her practicing with Marius, both last evening and in the morning, but the change still seemed too great.

There was another attack by shades later that day, handled just as quickly.  His noon and evening meals were dumped on the ground, just like before.  This time they remembered to check that his bonds weren't too tight.  He was kept tied to the cart except to relieve himself, and then Marius kept him on a leash.  By evening, he was starving, and his entire body ached.  This was longer than he'd gone without sleep before, and hunger and exhaustion from walking all day was added on top of that. 

Marius, out of pity, fed him some dry biscuits during his watch, but still would not be persuaded to help him in any way.  The shifter made him walk around to help keep him awake.  Shen hadn't really been able to sit down at all since yesterday.

"Do you know the story of how my people became hated and despised?"  Just like yesterday, the shifter wanted to talk.

"I don't care."

"Because of our knowledge of magic, we could spy on people unobserved in many forms, see into the future, and peer into the hearts on men.  Some of that knowledge has been lost, sadly, but a millennium ago we were revered.  In every court, in every city, every province, there you would find a Lykaon serving at the side of the leader.  People looked to us for advice and guidance in all things.

"And yet when a madman claiming to be a prophet and savior arrived, promising an end to the shades that plagued the land, we denied and denounced him.  Were we truly so blind, not to recognize the divine warrior Nehame?  Or did we know him for what he was, and feared him as a threat to our status and power?  For the savior of the world to be a stranger, a nobody, rather than one of us, would be a severe blow to our pride.  And when, in spite of us, Nehame went on to seal Amaut and end the invasion of shades, the people rightfully turned on us and cast us into the wilderness."

"What's the point of this?"

"You can see no parallels to your own state?  None at all?  Perhaps the two are too different, after all.  My people had authority lawfully granted to us.  Where is yours?  The church has not acknowledged you.  What reason do you have for thinking you have such an important destiny as being the companions to Nehame?"

"It came to him in a dream."

"Is that all?  A dream?  Last night I dreamt we were fleeing to a new country to escape unknown pursuers.  I remember boarding a vast ship, rocking constantly in the waves, and looking up to a sea of stars.  Should I except to take an ocean voyage in the future?  I hope not.  I hate the water."

"This dream was different."  Was it?  He only had Roman's word for it.  Roman wouldn't consciously lie about such a thing, surely, but he had been looking for a sign.  Would he find one, even if it wasn't truly there?

"Your faith in your friend is quite strong to believe in him so, even after abandoning him."

"I didn't abandon him!"

"Did you not?  We found you alone.  You left him, did you not?  What else should I call it?"

Shen looked down at the shifter, a pair of yellow eyes glittering in the dark.  A wave of horror washed over him.

"Stop it!"  He clutched his head.  "Get out of my mind!  You've bewitched me, you beast!"

"Have I?  When would I have done that?  You've been awake all this time, so I could hardly catch you unawares."

"Shut up!  You've done it!  I don't know how but you've done it!  All your words in my mind rattling around over and over and I can't make it stop!"

"There's no magic in our words, child, but there might be truth.  If they affect you so strongly, perhaps they resonate with your own guilt.  They remind you of what you truly are:  a fraud, a shallow, hypocritical glory-seeker with delusions of--"

"Enough!"  Shen lunged for the wolf, who dodged nimbly out of the way as Shen reached the end of his tether and crashed to the ground.  The others, awakened by the noise, stirred in their tents.

"Everything's fine!  Go back to sleep," the wolf called out to them.  He turned back to Shen, still lying on the ground, and ordered him to get up.

"No," came the muffled response.  This was the closest thing to real rest in two days for him.  Head buried in his arms, he was barely aware of an odd noise beside him. 

Suddenly a pair of strong arms was hauling him upright.  Startled, he looked right into the face of an unfamiliar man.  A _naked_ unfamiliar man.  One who was taller and more strongly built than himself.

After satisfying himself that Shen could stand on his own, the man stepped back, and transformed back into a wolf.

Right.  They were called shifters for a reason, after all.

"Why do you remain a wolf?  Wouldn't it be more convenient to be a man?"

"For some reason, my mistress finds me less threatening as a literal beast.  Since I cannot act as a pack mule or run errands in this form, I personally find it rather convenient."

At some point, the shifter traded places with her.  She was talking to him, but he couldn't catch what she was saying. 

"Why me?" he groaned, interrupting whatever she had been saying.  "Rialla's the one who blew everything out of proportion.  She demanded you be put on trial.  I was against it!"

"That's rich, blaming the woman for everything.  I know, what a bitch, right?  Being so angry that she caught her boyfriend cheating.  I mean,” she added, “she _is_ a bitch, and I do blame her for attacking me instead of Roman, but have a little empathy, dude. 

“But she was worse than me!  Roman was worse than me!  Why am I the one enduring this?”

“Because you’re the one in front of me.  And even if you aren’t as bad as them, you still had a hand in things, so I have to punish you for your own part.”

“For what?  Defending a friend?”

“For being blind to his faults.  For not warning a 17-year-old girl who just told you she doesn’t drink how strong the alcohol you forced on her really was.  For being too interested in partying to look after her.  You made me tramp through the woods in clothes unfit for it.  When I got to the village, I wanted a bath, a bed, a change of clothes.  I didn’t want to stick around in a strange town full of people I didn’t know and wait for someone to finally bother to look after me.  And when things went bad, you didn’t try to stop it.  Don’t tell me it wasn’t out of your control.  You didn’t have to go along with it, just like you didn’t have to go along with slaughtering Grunt’s tribe.  At least you could have washed your hands of it and walked away.  That would have been something.  People would at least know you didn’t approve.  Maybe some of them would have realized they didn’t have to go along with everything, too, and followed you.  But we’ll never know now, will we?”

"So what do you want?  For me to say that I was wrong?  Fine, I admit it:  I was wrong!  I'm sorry!  Are you happy now?"

She stared at him.  The moon was out, and a small fire stayed lit near the camp, but there wasn't enough light to make out her expression.

"No," she said at last.  "I'm not.  It's not enough."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want these past months to never have happened."  She walked up to him and shoved him to the ground.  He felt the tip of a knife at his throat as she knelt on his chest.  "I want to feel happy and safe again.  I want to be with my family again.  I want my ear to be whole again!  _I want to be a virgin again!_   Can you give me any of that?"

"You know I can't!"

"Then what good are your 'I'm sorrys'?"

She didn't stab him.  As she got off him, he felt a twinge of disappointment, not relief.  What had he been hoping for?

The next day was harder than yesterday.  He was sick with a headache and he had trouble keeping up with the cart, forcing them to slow their pace.  They weren't taking main roads, and often cut through fields to avoid running into people, so the terrain was rough.  He tripped and stumbled several times.  Conversation went on around him, but all he could focus on was his feet, keeping one in front of the other, over and over again.

How had he got to this point?  Where had he gone wrong?  Was it in choosing to leave his friend?  In not speaking up against the raid on the orcs?  In letting _her_ take the brunt of the blame in order to shield his friend?

Was the mistake even farther back?  He thought he had believed in his friend's vision, but was that true?  Or did he convince himself it was true so he wouldn't feel any guilt for leaving both his family and his duties and responsibilities? 

Was that all this had been, then?  No righteousness, no saving the day or upholding justice, just a coward fleeing reality for excitement and transient glory?  And did the same hold true for his friends?  Deep down he'd never really believed Rialla was divinely inspired.  Before he would tell himself that it was his own personal dislike of her influencing his judgement.

Maybe his own personal feelings for Roman had affected his judgement as well.  The man was friendly and charming, but--careless, was how Shen used to put it.  Roman would get carried away and do things that hurt those around him.  It was never intentional.  He just didn't think things through.

Roman was a full-grown man, a year past the age of majority, yet at times he was still as inconsiderate as a child.  Because he was everyone's darling, people looked the over way and glossed over any trouble he caused.  If he had been loved less, he might have grown into a better man.

Frauds.  They had all been nothing but frauds seeking fame.  Who had told him that?  It didn't matter, for it felt _right._   They were frauds, full of hubris, thinking they were so important, so holy, to think the prophecy referred to them.  What had they been thinking?  He wanted to die from the shame.

It was while he was in such a mood that more shades attacked, a larger group than he'd ever seen before.  Too many for them to easily fight off.

A wall of feathers appeared around them and widened, shoving most of the shades far back.  At a shouted command from Kaitlynn, she, Arturos, and Marius rushed off to kill the ones trapped inside.  When they were gone, the barrier fell, and they fell back to the cart to await the next wave.

_Her_ fighting was something to behold.  When too many surrounded her, the wall of feathers went back up, pushing her enemies back.  At times she would glance over at her companions, and send the wall around them, too, when necessary.  Near the end, one of the last shades was destroyed when she summoned the barrier around it, and constricted it, crushing the shade within.

"Oh, hey, that worked!"

He barely heard her, though all his focus was upon her.  It had been hard to see during the battle, but now he was sure it was there:  a halo surrounding her head, a crown of feathers.  With a cry he fell to his knees.

"What are you doing?  Get up," she commanded as she hurried over to him.  But he could not.  How dare he stand?  "Forgive me, Divine Savior," he heard himself say, as if listening from a distance, "I saw you and did not know you and in my pride I cast you out among the lowest and put myself higher than you I was wicked and prideful and sinned greatly and I am sorry Nehame have mercy on me!"  It had all come out in a rush as he grabbed at the hem of her tunic.  He was barely aware of what he was saying, taking no heed of the tears running down his face, all thoughts only on one thing:  that she was indeed Nehame returned, the destined savior of the world.

And he had scorned her.


	5. Chapter 5

It was done.  Her plan appeared to have worked.  Shen begged for her forgiveness, and for Grunt's, and probably would have begged Marius and Arturos to be forgiven for any number of imagined crimes against them, if they had been so inclined.  To be honest, Kaitlynn was a little surprised at how quickly it had happened.  Her own experience with brainwashing was the kind that took years.  It was a slow grind, day after day, year after year, of having to listen to the whole damn world tell her that black is white, right is wrong, that her view of the world was nothing more than her own ignorant and skewed perception, while the view of those in charge was nothing other than objective truth.  If she had remained in her own world, maybe she would have ended up as broken as Shen after a few more years.  Which method, she wondered, would be better?  To go mad quickly or slowly? 

Nevertheless, the deed was done.  It didn't make her happy.  She never actually thought it would.  But it lessened the pain a little, at least, even as the sight of his pathetic figure now filled her with disgust.  Perhaps she had gone too far, but it wasn't as it there was any alternative open to her if she wanted justice.  It was this, or nothing.  Why should she be the better person and choose nothing?

"So, what do you intend to do with him now?"  Arturos asked her when they stopped for lunch.  Shen was sleeping in the cart.  If he ever caught up on his sleep, he might have second thoughts, but an hour's rest wouldn't hurt.  It was a reward for good behavior, in fact.

"You said we'd kill him eventually," Grunt pointed out, albeit reluctantly.  The sight of his enemy, broken and begging had slaked his bloodthirst enough to feel guilty about murdering an unarmed and bound man.

"It hardly seems worth the effort now."  That was Marius, who had been against everything from the start.

"I have a better idea."  In his rambling, Shen had denounced his former companions as liars and frauds.  If he was willing to swear to such a thing, in front of witnesses....  Her lips curled into a smile.

"Mistress, what are you planning?" 

"Nothing illegal, so it's fine.  Don't worry about it.  I'll discuss it more tonight, after I've had a chance to think it out first."

"Whatever you have planned, if you're not going to kill him, we should rejoin the main road as soon as we can.  I don't know if the shades are more numerous because we are away from the roads or for some other cause, but it would be safer for us to be near other people."

"We probably should."

"Let me fight with you next time," Grunt piped up.  "I can help."

"Someone has to guard the cart, kid."

At the end of their meal, they packed up, woke Shen up, and set off.  While Grunt was still sulking, the overall mood was lighter than it had been the past few days.  There was no need to keep so close an eye on their prisoner, so he was allowed to walk without his hands bound.  Conversations turned to lighter topics than they had been the past few days.  The tension that had permeated the air around them before had been released.

It had been released for all but Marius, anyway.  He could not bring himself to say it, or even to privately admit it to himself, but Marius was unhappy.  He had been for some time, ever since she bought the shifter and the goblin.  His mistress put too much stock in whatever the shifter said, and she spoiled the goblin.  He felt as if his own position was slipping, lowering to the level of beasts, just as Lord Surral had suggested.

Then there was the matter of Lord Surral.  It wasn't just that she attacked and captured a wealthy nobleman, although that was a serious crime.  It was what she had done to him afterwards.  What she had turned him into.  Since childhood, Marius had been taught that some men are meant to lead, while others are to follow.  God would not put an unfit man into a position of power or allow a gifted man's skills to languish in poverty and obscurity.  Everyone deserved to be where they were.  A slave could not become a king, nor a king a slave.

And yet Shen now acted exactly like a slave, a cringing, pathetic, servile creature, with no will of his own.  There was something truly wrong, to see a man of such high status, so finely dressed, on his knees and kissing the hem of not just Kaitlynn, but an orc child.  And it only took a few days to bring him to that state.  Even slaves, notoriously spineless, would sometimes hold out against their punishments for longer.  That shouldn't be possible, unless Shen was not who he said he was, but an imposter.  There seemed to be little chance of that.

Marius didn't understand it, and that frightened him.  He wanted things to go back to the way they were when he first met his mistress, when she was the only complicated thing in his life.  No rivals to supplant him, no major laws broken, no captives challenging his most fundamental beliefs.

No prophecies to fulfill, either.  He could not even begin to think on that subject.  It was too much, far too much.  Let church fathers handle it, he told his mistress that evening when she tried to discuss plans of declaring herself as the divine savior.  He refused to support any other method.  There was a lot of debate as to whether to head to Vivere or straight to Calcaeum to meet the Patriarch.  To his relief, they chose Vivere.  Calcaeum was hard to enter without an invitation.  Better to take the matter to the high priest in Vivere and let him send word to the Patriarch, and Marius refused to think any further than that.  He went to bed praying the high priest would find a way to disqualify his mistress so things could not spiral out of control any more than they already were.

*** * ***

They had to endure several attacks by shades before they returned to Vivere.  Near the end of the trip, they joined with another group of travelers, who were astounded by Kaitlynn's magical barrier.  She never told them how she obtained such powers.  She didn't need to.  The divine abilities of the hero Nehame were well known, after all.  Her refusal to identify herself only added fuel to the fire, so that within an hour of reaching Vivere, the rumor of Nehame's return was spreading rapidly.

Considering what happened last time a crowd of people thought she was divine savior, Kaitlynn was not exactly comfortable with this new fame, but there was little she could do about it.  The shades were attacking in larger numbers now.  It would have been hard not to use her one magical ability, especially since Arturos could not cast magic in front of other people.

After arranging for rooms and a place to store the cart, and before the rumor could send things wildly out of hand, she led her group straight to the cathedral on the north end of town.  Best to go to the highest authority possible as quickly as possible, rather than waste time going up the chain of command.  She'd go straight to the Patriarch in Calcaeum if she thought it was feasible.

There was a mass, or service, or whatever people called it in this world, running when they reached the doors, so they were forced to wait outside.  Or, rather, Kaitlynn refused to step foot inside until it ended, and her companions were forced to stay with her.  Once it was over, and the (rather small, since it was a mid-day service) throng of worshippers finished exiting the building, she approached the high priest, who remained on the steps, smiling indulgently at his flock.

Before he could ask Kaitlynn what she wanted, she held out her hand before him and summoned the feather of light.  He stared in astonishment.

"What is the meaning of this?" he asked.

Shen stepped forward.  "It is the symbol of the divine hero Nehame, your Grace.  I saw her when she first came to this world.  She descended in a beam of light to the ruins of the Justified Hope, near the village of Murae.  Since then I have seen many signs of her divinity and watched her perform miracles against the shades that prey upon innocent people!"

The high priest turned a skeptical eye towards Shen.  "And who might you be?"

He held out a signet ring.  "A poor sinner, your Grace, by the name of Shen Surral."

It was enough to make the priest usher them all inside--except for Arturos, as dogs were not allowed to step foot within the church.  He snorted in frustration before lying down near the door to wait.

Once inside, the high priest summoned servants, who were then sent to fetch other priests, scribes, scholars--anyone who might be qualified to judge whether this strange woman was indeed the returned Nehame.  Kaitlynn and her companions were all separated and, she assumed, questioned individually.  At least, that was how the next several hours for her were spent.  Who was she?  Where did she come from?  How did she get here?  How did she create the feather?  What other abilities did she have? Did she really believe she was the divine hero, Nehame returned to save the world from destruction?  Too nervous to be able to remember a lie, she answered them all honestly.  She also told them an abbreviated version of how she first met Shen, and later came to travel with him.  He had promised to denounce his former companions, and she hoped he would stick to it.

At the end of it, they were given rooms to stay in within a small building behind the cathedral.  Messengers were sent to the inn to cancel the rooms and retrieve their belongings.  After much persuasion, Arturos was allowed to stay inside with them, so long as he behaved.  They weren't quite prisoners.  They could leave, so long as they had an escort, but it wasn't recommended.  Kaitlynn was too nervous to stay sitting inside a cramped room, however, so she summoned one of the guards and asked to be allowed to go for a walk.

"Poochie here needs to do his business," she explained.  There was a low growl below her.  She ignored it.  "Unless you'd rather he make a mess inside...?"

Five minutes later, she was wandering around Vivere, holding Arturos on a leash, her escort following behind.

While out and about, she ran into a familiar face.

"Ah, Mistress Bryant!  So good to see you again!"

"You again?"

The slave trader fell into step beside her.  "Is it so surprising?  Only two weeks have passed since our last meeting.  I don't move around that much!  But I was hoping to see you again on a different matter than commerce," his voice dropped as he leaned in slightly.  "My lady, I have heard a wonderful rumor about you."

"Already?  I just got into town today."

"But is it true?  I hear you bear Nehame's symbol and wield it like a champion of light against the monstrous shades that have become so numerous as of late.  There are many who claim you are Nehame himself."

"That's what the high priest is trying to find out.  I'm stuck staying near the cathedral until he comes to a decision.  Can't even go outside without a guard dog," she gestured to the man following her.

"That could take some time.  The wheels of both church and state are large, and move slowly, so slowly that to many they do not seem to move at all.  But what can you expect from a system run by old men, eh?  It's a source of great frustration to young people such as you and me!"

Kaitlynn did not consider the slave trader young.  Thirty is a ripe old age to a teenager, after all. 

The trader glanced down at Arturos.  "Do you plan to keep you dog with you?  That might not be wise.  Dogs are considered unlucky and unclean.  He'll never be allowed to set foot on sacred ground.  I could watch over him for you until your business is settled.  If it would please you."

"I'll think about it."  He had a point.  It would be dangerous if anyone heard Arturos speak.  She had suggested he take human form, but he claimed it would be even harder to hide his status as a shifter while in human form.  He'd looked like a perfectly normal human the only time she saw him in that form, but it had only been a brief glimpse weeks ago.  She had to trust that he knew best how to avoid getting killed. 

She was not, however, comfortable with letting him out of her sight.  He was a liar, but far too useful to give up.  And she liked having someone that would actually talk back to her or go against her occasionally.  How do rich white men stand being surrounded by nothing but sycophants all the time? 

"Well, if you every change your mind, my dear lady, please do send for me.  I live to serve!"  With a dramatic flourish, he bowed low to her before continuing his walk.  She stared after him in contemplation, until his figure disappeared into the crowd.

*** * ***

They were forced to wait three weeks before learning of any progress.  In the intervening time they were questioned again and again, and Kaitlynn was made to demonstrate her abilities.  She was also questioned at length about her home world, the country, the land, the people, the history.  They were all made to swear to their statements and sign written transcripts of their interviews.  She was worried they might be tortured to verify the truth of their claims, but no one laid a hand on them.  Instead, it was all rather tedious and dull.  To make matters worse, going outside became more difficult as the rumors spread. 

Kaitlynn's main concern was Shen.  Back among civilization and finally allowed to sleep all through the night, she was afraid he'd come to his senses and recant.  Fortunately, it appeared that it would take more than two weeks to undo what they'd done to him in three days.  Shen spent much of his time engaged in prayer and penitence.  When Marius went to bed, Shen stayed up late, reading through scripture, and in the mornings when Marius awoke, he often found Shen prostrate on the floor before Nehame's symbol.  Kaitlynn overheard the priests once discussing his request to be scourged.  She felt a little guilty for making him this way.  Only a little, though.

At the end of two weeks, the high priest summoned them all together.  That morning a large group had arrived at the church, causing a flurry of activity.  Those new guests stood silently beside the high priest.  In the priest's hands he held an ornate scroll.  A large, gaudy, gold-colored seal hung from the end of the ribbon that had once held the scroll together.

"I have this day received word from His Holiness, the Patriarch Helonius II, who has heard of your miraculous deeds and has sent forth a summons.  You and your companions are head straight to the holy city of Calcaeum for an audience with His Holiness in the Salutari Nostrum, from which he will determine the truthfulness of your claims.  I have been charged to provide you with an escort, so that you may reach the holy city safely."

"Is there a problem?" Kaitlynn asked, for he did not look pleased at the message.

"There are none that I can find.  This message is very sudden, yet I can find no fault with the letter, or the seal, or the messenger.  It would appear that Our Father Helonius has taken a keen interest in you."

And just like that, they were out of the city by early afternoon.  Kaitlynn was allowed to bring her cart, but a carriage was also provided, as among her group, only Shen knew how to ride a horse.  She hated sitting down all day, and there was an extra horse, so she learned.  Ten men joined them:  seven guards, two priests, and a servant to look after them.  It was not a pleasant journey for Kaitlynn and her crew.  Shen's penitent and servile attitude made him unpopular with the guards, and because he was still deprived of his weapons, they sneered at his uselessness.  Arturos could not speak, nor fight against the many shades that attacked them along the way.  Giraunt, who felt closer to Arturos than the others, was lonely without being able to look to the shifter for comfort and guidance.  Kaitlynn tried her best with him, but it wasn't the same.  Kaitlynn herself disliked the escorts assigned to her; she was keenly aware she was the only woman in the group and could overhear the snide comments the guards made among themselves about her.  The comments stopped after the first fight against shades, but by that time, the damage was done.  They reminded her unpleasantly of her first night in this world, making her anxious and paranoid.  She kept Marius close to her at all times in order to feel a little safer.

Unlike the others, Marius almost enjoyed the trip.  He felt as if he had returned to the position of favorite again.  If it weren't for the shades, he would have liked the journey to continue even longer.

Unfortunately, over the past few weeks, shades had come to almost overrun the countryside.  It was dangerous to travel without guards, or at least without a weapon of one's own.  If the stories from the guards were correct, the change would have happened around the time Kaitlynn stepped on the dais.  It was an unsettling coincidence, Marius told himself.  Nothing more. 

The guards also claimed that the attacks they endured while traveling to Calcaeum were much worse than traveling from it.  It overshadowed the awe they felt the first time they saw Kaitlynn put up her magical barrier.  No lives were lost, no one was seriously injured, but by the time they reached the holy city there were dark whispering among the guards that the shades were targeting Kaitlynn specifically, and they would be glad to have discharged their duties.

As the home of the Patriarch, the head of the church, Kaitlynn had expected Calcaeum to be impressive, like the Vatican.  Technically, it was impressive, but in the manner of brutalist architecture.  Everything was grey and oppressive, with no paint, no gilding, no sculptures or bas reliefs or stained glass. 

"About 300 years ago," one of the priests explained, "a great fire ravaged the city of Calcaeum, destroying many of the buildings and houses within its walls.  With the support of King Bellinius, the city of Calcaeum was rebuilt, on a grander scale than before.  The Patriarch Anestius hired the great Dunnafan to design the new city.  His vision was to build a city without the trappings of pride and idolatry so sadly common in men.  The Patriarch passed a decree requiring all new buildings erected within Calcaeum, and now, with the exception of the Salutari Nostrum, which survived the fire, all buildings here are in the same style."  He looked pleased, as if he himself was responsible for the city's appearance...and that the city's appearance was something to be proud of.  Kaitlynn thought the city would not be out of place in some Soviet-inspired dystopian hellhole.

A crowd soon formed around them after they entered the city gates.  The rumors had spread ahead of them.  All around them, people pressed against their group, pushing and shoving, all desperate for a glimpse of their savior.  Not Kaitlynn, though; it was Shen most assumed to be the holy one, much to his chagrin.  Others saw Marius's beauty and clamored for him.  Kaitlynn, a woman with a torn ear, short hair, and a sullen countenance, was ignored.  Fine by her. 

The Salutari Nostrum, the oldest building left in Calcaeum and the only temple Nehame was known to definitely have visited, was far more to Kaitlynn's taste in architecture.  It was tall and gothic, all windows filled with elaborately made stained glass and framed with detailed, beautiful carvings--or what was left of them.  Most of the more elaborate carvings had been smashed at some point.  Even many of the gargoyles on top had been replaced with simpler, abstract shapes, meant more for function than form.

Their group was sent not to the Salutari directly, but to a set of rooms in a building next to it, just as when she had addressed the high priest in Vivere.  Her audience with the Patriarch Helonius II would be tomorrow after morning service.  Finished with their task, the guards returned to their normal duties, and the priests retired to their own residences.  Kaitlynn and her companions dined together in a private room. 

"This has gone too well," warned Arturos.  "Be on your guard."

"As long as they can't dispel my barrier, I'll probably be safe."  They had tried their own weapons on it in their spare time.  It shielded her from swords, fists, and darts. 

"Even so...."

"What do you think they plan to do?"  It was Marius, concern on his face. 

"Denounce us as heretics and burn us at the stake?  Isn't that normally the fate of those who go against those in power?"

"Impossible!"  Shen slammed his fist down on the table.  "Nehame is under divine protection!  They will fail even if they try, and God will curse them for their wickedness!"

"You may be right.  I can only hope that her divine protection will extend to all of us, as well."

"They've given us good rooms and fine food," Marius said hopefully.  "If they were planning to arrest us, I doubt they'd go through the trouble."

"I think they totally would.  It would look back to mistreat us before they officially said anything.  Appearances count for a lot."

"She is right," Arturos agreed.  "Be prepared for tomorrow."  He stood up.  "Come closer.  I can cast a few spells of protection.  We might need them."

"Keep your profane magic off me, witch!"  Shen glared at the shifter as he drew back.  Everyone else readily accepted the offer, and the rest of the evening was spent discussing and discarding multiple contingency plans for the next day.

*** * ***

They were led into the church the next day.  New guards accompanied them.  The men were curt and brusque, but not hostile.  Before they arrived Arturos cast a spell to hide himself from others so he could follow in secret.  This was far too interesting an experience to miss out on.

The main room of the Salutari was vast, able to hold thousands of worshippers at once.  Today it was not full, but it was far from empty.  Old men in rich robes lined the walls, while scribes sat at their desks in front of them.  The balconies high above them were packed with people.  Guards stood at every door.  A wide, red carpet ran from the entrance at the front to the dais and continued on the other side to the back wall.  Unlike other churches, in the center of the stone dais was a fountain.  This place had been built on a spring, and supposedly had healing properties.  Behind the dais, at the far end of the church at the top of a row of steps, sat the Patriarch, with a multitude of advisors to his left and right.  In front of the dais were the priests and guards who had joined them on their journey.  They were directed to join these men.  Once everyone was assembled, a man to the right of the Patriarch called the inquiry (as he called it) to order.

It was a very long, stressful, and yet dull affair.  The priests and guards all gave their testimony to what they had seen on the journey to Calcaeum.  The sworn testimony from Vivere was read out, and they were all asked to swear to it again and repeat it in their own words as well.  Marius's testimony was about as Kaitlynn expected, although it was read over objections from many in the hall, for the testimony of a slave was not worth much.  Grunt, being not only a slave, but an orc and a child as well, was not called to testify at all.  She was relieved to hear Shen speak out in her favor and accuse his companions of falsely claiming to be inspired by a divine vision, just as he had promised.

"I swear to you, Our Father, that in his pride and out of selfish love Roman Alteus took up the mantle of Nehame's Companion, falsely claiming to be inspired by a vision.  Both Rialla Guilleche knew him to be a false prophet, and yet we followed him, not for the glory of God, but for ourselves.  On our travels I witnessed many profane acts committed by both of them, and to my eternal shame and regret not only did I not try to turn them from iniquity but joined them!"  No one asked him, but he went on in great detail about the sins he and his friends committed, from excessive drinking, to the slaughter of women and children, to the seduction and ravishment of maidens, far more than what she knew they had done to her and to Grunt's people.  She stared at her feet and wondered how much of it was true as Shen sank to his knees and tearfully begged to receive whatever punishment the Patriarch deemed fitting.

At last, the eyes of everyone turned to Kaitlynn.  It was not any of the advisors or other officials who questioned her, but the Patriarch himself.

"Child," he began, "all these men have testified to their belief that you are the prophesied savior, the divine hero Nehame returned to us after a thousand years.  What of you?  Do you, yourself, claim to be our long-awaited savior?"

Her voice came out as a croak.  "I don't know."

"You don't know.  False modesty will not serve you here.  This is not the place for 'mights' and 'maybes'.  You did not seek an audience here, in the holiest of holies, only to say that ' _you don't know!'_ "

The Patriarch was an old man, who had looked so small and frail, sitting in his throne, but now that he spoke, she couldn't help but tremble in fear a little.

Arturos had suggested some flowery speeches to give; she tried one of them now.  "Does a grain of wheat in the field know its purpose?  Does it understand its fate is to be harvested, threshed, ground into flour, baked into bread, and used to fill the stomach of a starving child.  I know no more of my purpose on this earth than that grain.  I came here because of this," she said, holding out her hand.  The feather of light appeared within her palm.  "I gained these powers after visiting the abandoned temple of Custo in the east."

"So I have been told.  And since your visit to the ruins, the shades that plague our land have only grown in number.  The good people of Isven live in fear for their lives.  You wish me to believe your tricks come from God.  Do you think me a fool?  You have kept by your side a black dog in the form of a wolf:  a foul shifter, a prince of lies!"

Well.  That was not the response she'd been hoping for.  All around her, people were stirring, whispering amongst themselves.  More importantly, the guards were on alert, already reaching for their weapons.

She was standing right next to the stone dais, almost literally within a step of it.  Hoping Nehame did seal away some of their powers here, she moved forward.  Guards rushed to stop her, but she simply raised her barrier, stepped up onto the stone framing the fountain, and watched the stone light up from within.

It silenced everyone almost instantly.  Not only the stone, but the water within the fountain glowed brightly, bathing everyone in light.  And with the light rising below her came something else, too.  It travelled up through the soles of her shoes, through her legs, reverberated in her chest, and spilled out her mouth.

"Our Father, who reigns on earth," she called out, her voice strong and clear, "I made these seals to protect your people, yet in your indolence and depravity you have abandoned all of my temples but one, and allowed the seals to weaken, unleashing the shades once more!  They must be broken and remade anew, and you have no one to blame but your own wickedness.

"My children!" she shouted, turning to the crowds around her, "twice you have denied me and twice I will forgive you.  There will not be a third time.  The thousand years grace has ended, and I will defeat Amaut once more.  I do not ask for your blessing, for I am commanded by a higher power than yours.  I do not ask you not hinder me, for you cannot prevent the decree of God.  Remember the fate of the Magi."

She was quite proud of herself for that speech.  It threw everyone into confusion.  She stayed on the dais and watched as the Patriarch and his men tried to bring everyone back to order.  In the end they gave up and called for a recess.

She and her companions were led into a small room off to the side to wait.  Marius rushed up to her.

"Mistress, what was that speech you gave?"

She shrugged.  "It sounded good to me at the time."  It had been a flash of inspiration.  The fanciful part of her felt it came from an outside source, from the spirit of Nehame himself, perhaps, but now that the moment had passed, she could no longer tell.

"Who are the Magi?"  Grunt spoke for the first time. 

"It's the old title for the shifters, before they were overthrown," Marius explained.

"Is that really what they were called?  I was guessing."  They looked at her in confusion.  "It's also possible I overheard it somewhere and forgot about it."

There were no timepieces with them, but she guessed it was about an hour before they were called back in.  The mood was much improved once things resumed.  Everyone, up to and including the Patriarch, treated her with much more deference and respect than before.  A good sign, she thought.

A hush fell upon the hall as the Patriarch was helped to his feet.  Raising his arms, he addressed the crowd in a deep and booming voice.

"My brothers, the year past has been a difficult one, not just for our nation, but the whole world.  After a thousand years of peace, the shadow of Amaut falls on us once more.  Our generation is the unhappy one who must bear this burden.

"Yet all is not lost!  Before returning to his heavenly realm, the divine hero Nehame promised to return in our hour of need.  We would not face our trial alone.  The Lord God would send to us a second Nehame, an advocate, a defender of Man.  Many have claimed the title of Nehame, yet until today none have shown incontrovertible proof of their identity.  My brothers, today we have all witnessed an undeniable miracle in this most sacred of places.  Let this be a holy day, a day of remembrance, for God has given us our savior!"

The end of his speech was almost drowned out by the roar of approval.  Hats and handkerchiefs fluttered down from above. 

The Patriarch raised his arms for silence.  "I have no wish to dampen this joyous occasion, but there is one further matter to address:  that of the conduct of Lord Roman Alteus, Lady Rialla Guilleche, and Lord Shen Surral.  In their wickedness they denied our savior when she appeared before them and slandered her holy name with lies!  Were it not for their sins, Nehame might have been brought before us sooner, sparing us all many months of suffering!  They are anathema!"  One of the men to his righthanded over three decorated sticks.  Holding them up before the crowd, he broke them deliberately, threw them to the ground, and spat on them. 

"These three are enemies against Man, against righteousness, and against God," he said.  "We cast them out from all virtuous society.  Whosoever harbors them, whether knowingly or in ignorance, shall be regarded as their ally and an enemy against God!

"But we are merciful.  It is with the aid of Shen Surral that their iniquities have come to light, and we hold his repentance to be sincere and just.  To him we condemn him to the lesser punishment of bondage.  As he has toiled for his own vanity and selfish desires, now shall all the fruits of his labor be devoted to another, that he might learn humility.  May god have mercy on his soul."

There were murmurings of consternation, but no one objected outright to the ruling.  And then that was the end of it--almost.  The Patriarch, with his entourage, filed out through a door behind him, with much pomp and circumstance.  Their departure seemed to be a cue for everyone to start packing up.  As people began leaving, and before any of the crowd could come up to her and ask for her blessing or whatever they intended to do with her, one of the servants of the church appeared at her side and asked her to follow him.  He led her down narrow corridors in the back of the church, to an office in the back.  Inside, the Patriarch was waiting.  He waived the servant away, who closed the door behind him as he left.

The Patriarch stared at her for a while.  It made her uncomfortable, until she was finally forced to ask what he wanted.

"Do you know who you are?"

"I'm Nehame, aren't I?"  Wasn't that what the whole mess in the main hall was about?

"No.  I know you.  You are Death.  You are Destruction.  You are the messenger of Amaut who will devour us all.  I can see it in your eyes."  He stood up to walk closer to her.  "Do you know what the prophecy entailed?  The exact words?  No, you don't," he added before she could respond, "it was kept secret.  The more known about a prophecy, the easier it is for charlatans to fulfill it.  I will tell you what it meant:  as you said yourself in the hall, Nehame gave the world a thousand years' grace.  It was not salvation, but a reprieve:  a chance for men to mend their wicked ways and prepare themselves for the end.  And to judge by the look in your eyes, we have failed.  This is the end."

"But you called me Nehame anyway.  Why not have me declared anathema like the others?  Or just executed outright?  The way things are, you're helping the end along."

"I did not think you would be the one.  You were so different compared to the oldest records.  Nehame came to our world wearing a crown of glass, from a land called Olympus, a barren land where both the earth and sky were as red as blood.  Nothing like your world.  If I had known better, I would have done things much differently.  Once you broke the second seal, there was no chance of denying you.  Too many people had seen you.  I have damned us all."

"Could you send me back?  To where I came from?"

"If I knew how, I would.  Official scriptures claim Nehame was sent here by God himself, pulled from the heavens to observe and judge humanity:  a mortal like ourselves, and yet one who can remain apart and observe us impartially as an outsider.  Many of the oldest texts in our archives suggest an old sect within the church summoned Nehame themselves and created the seals, but the details have been lost.  Ever since the shades first reappeared, we have been searching for a way to repeat the ritual and summon Nehame ourselves, but to no avail.  You are trapped here with us and must share our fate."

He turned away from her and headed back to his desk.  Without looking at her, he waved his hand in dismissal. "Go.  Complete your quest.  I cannot stop you.  You are commanded by God Himself, after all."

She left without a word.  He held his head in his hands, cursing his stupidity.  He had given her an audience as a favor to a friend, little thinking this would be the outcome.

There was one chance.  It was impossible to go against God, but he would not be human if he didn't try.  Lord Surral's confession was highly convenient.  The families of Alteus and Guilleche were both proud and powerful, as was the Surral family.  If the accused themselves did not hunt down the girl in revenge, their families would not quietly let their children be disgraced.  He had met the parents of both houses and knew their temperaments well.  He doubted not that they would seek revenge against the woman who caused everything.  It was not as sure as hiring assassins himself, but this way blame could not make its way back to him.  Appearances must be kept, even at the end of the world.

A little nudge in the right direction could not hurt, however.  A message of condolence, outwardly pious and sympathetic, might be enough to stir them into outrage.  Sitting back down at his desk, he took pen and paper, and began to write.

*** * ***

Despite Our Father Helonius's parting words, they received quite a few valuable gifts from the church on their departure.  New clothes, food, equipment, but most valuable of all was a map of the places Nehame had sealed away their powers. 

There was another surprise as they were packing everything into the cart:  the slave trader came by to greet them.

"You!  What are you doing here?"

"I'm here on business, of course.  Our Father has given Shen Surral to me to sell to whomever I think best.  Perhaps you would like him back in your company?"

"No."

"Oh well.  I'm sure I can find someone else willing to purchase him."

"Why you?  I didn't think you were doing well enough to take a commission from the Patriarch."

"That is answered simply enough:  I knew him before he entered the church.  We are old friends who once worked in the same profession.  In fact, he was my guide and teacher while I was just starting out.  I owe him a great debt, which is partly why I sent him a letter about you, encouraging him to hold an audience with you."

"What?"

"It's true.  In fact, I knew you were, divine savior, from the first day I saw you, long before you ever came to me as a customer.  You see, I am one of the Astarmonites, who live to the south, but are regarded as heretics in this land.  Our prophet Astarmon wrote his vision of Nehame as follows:  'I will come before you, a stranger in a strange land, and you will not know me, I will live among the lowest of the low and from there I shall judge the world.'  When I saw you in Serradis, in strange garb, friendless, penniless, and homeless, I thought to myself, 'this is no ordinary person!'  And I kept my eye out for you.  When you came to me, I became even more convinced, for the returned Nehame would experience life from all perspectives:  poor and rich, male and female, powerless and powerful.  You were well on your way to fulfilling that prophecy.  So, I decided to help things along.  Unlike the official church, we Astarmonites believe that Nehame's companions represented all the races of men:  human, shifter, and orc.  So, I made sure to give you slaves who would meet such requirements.  And I am glad to see I was right to do so, for here you stand before me, justified and exalted as the Divine Savior!"

He grinned in ecstasy.  Kaitlynn stared at him in horror.  Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she could summon her voice. 

"I need to go."

Caelum watched as she left with her companions in a hurry, without even waving goodbye to the trader.  He himself was unbothered.  The beggar girl had become the hero, just as he had hoped; it was all he wanted.  He was both a slave trader and a pious man, and not once had this contradiction ever bothered him.  Once they were out of sight, he turned his attention to other matters. 

The young lord bore his new status surprisingly well; he appeared to be thoroughly broken in spirit.  Caelum felt rather sorry for the boy, to see him brought so low.  He could not be called a kind man, for no man who engages in the slave trade could ever be called such, but he was not overly cruel, nor was he without empathy.  If he cared only for making a profit, there were plenty of ways to go about it, but Shen was the son of a wealthy family.  They would probably want their son back, and he was not so heartless as to charge a hefty price to grieving parents.  Their anti-slavery status would complicate matters, but he was certain he could work something out.  A secret exchange, with a go-between to handle the trade.  Heading back to his own lodgings, he made plans to head north to the Surral estate.


	6. Chapter 6

They were back on the road, having finally escaped the city and the hordes of worshippers clamoring for a glimpse of the returned Nehame.  An hour away from the city, the slave trader's words still unsettled Kaitlynn.  Though he had spoken kindly, and acted without malice, he made her feel like a pawn, as powerless and helpless as when she first arrived in this world.  To distract herself she studied the map she had received as she walked.

"The Patriarch's punishment for Lord Alteus and Lady Guilleche was rather harsh, don't you think?"  Marius asked her. 

She only gave a distracted "hmm" in response.

"It is rare for anyone to be declared anathema.  It's worse than excommunication.  They will be treated as outlaws now, hunted wherever they go."

"Huh," she muttered.  "Look here.  I arrived in the Temple of Justified Hope, down here.  And the one we went to east of Vivere is over here.  And the Salutari is up here, and down and to the left are the other two.  It forms a pentagram."

"Is that so odd?  They form a ring around the country, and there happen to be five of them."  Arturos pointed out.  He was quite happy to be able to speak again. 

"Is that all?  I was hoping for something more mystical.  You said these were built along old ley lines, right?"

"Yes, they were.  But that is unimportant right now.  I am more curious as to what abilities you gain from the second seal.  You have not demonstrated them yet."

She looked at her hand.  A shimmer of light formed and swirled around it, then faded.  "Healing, I think."

"Are you sure?  How do you know?"

"It's not like I know, but that I remember it from somewhere, if that makes sense.  Just like with the barrier before.  It feels like knowledge I picked up at some point, but forgot when, or where, or how."

"Strange.  For most spells that transfer knowledge, other memories often get sent along with them.  Memories are so intertwined that it's hard to separate them cleanly.  Do you not recall anything else?  Anything that does not belong to you?"

She thought hard before shaking her head.  "Nothing comes to mind."

"Hmm.  There was a theory among some within my tribe that Nehame sealed away parts of his soul to protect the land, and his resurrection would be affected by breaking the seals and absorbing each piece of his soul until the spirit of Nehame takes over the bearer.  In the past, before we were cast out completely, several Magi tried to break the seals in order to revive Nehame."

"Why would they do that?"

"Politics.  A way to go back into the populace's good graces.  Let people think the world is ending and bring them a savior you can control.  The plan failed, obviously."

"It wasn't just to revive Nehame," said Marius.  "They planned to sacrifice our holy savior to gain power for themselves.  It was the final outrage that the people of Isven were forced to bear.  When the plot was discovered, it led to the Massacre of the Magi.  Those who survived were declared anathema and forced to flee into the wilderness, where they took the forms of animals to escape justice."

"Well, they might have had such a plan."  Arturos yawned indifferently.  "It was centuries ago.  The truth has long since been lost."

It took them over a month to reach Argune.  Shades attacked them daily, slowing down their progress.  Kaitlynn had gotten quite skilled with using the barrier and could send up and control multiple ones at once.  No matter how many shades attacked, she could use the barriers to separate them into manageable groups, and thus whittle them down, group by group.  It was time-consuming, but not much more difficult than fighting them in the early days had been.

"If this is the result of opening two seals, what will the last two do?" Marius asked one evening as they sat around the campfire.  They were in no great danger, but the shades were indiscriminate in their choosing of targets.  They had not been able to save everyone.

"They haven't started appearing in the cities yet, just the roads and fields."

Arturos had, surprisingly, already fallen asleep.  He'd gotten distracted earlier during a battle and gotten injured.  Kaitlynn had healed him, but the ordeal had worn him out, or perhaps he was just sulking in embarrassment.  After glancing at the sleeping wolf, Grunt spoke up.  "My parents told me a story about the Time of Judgement, before the divine hero drove back Amaut.  They told me that shades took the forms of men, beasts, and dragons.  I haven't seen any dragons yet."

Marius and Kaitlynn looked at each other.

"Do you know how to use a bow and arrow?"

"No, Mistress, and I don't think that would be enough."

Grunt straightened.  "You have me.  I can use a bow!"

"It's a good thing we have you, then."  She leaned back on her elbows, staring up at the sky.  "Dragons, huh?"

*** * ***

Argune was a prosperous city, built along a major river that flowed in through the eastern border, through the heart of Isven, and down through the south.  Kaitlynn wanted to try to avoid being mobbed by crowds when they entered the city, so they acquired cloaks from one of the villages they passed along the way, but it didn't help much.  A group of mysterious people who hid their faces drew just as much attention as a group that matched the description of the divine hero and her companions would, and in the end, their identities were found out anyway.

It wasn't entirely bad.  On the plus side, their fame got them lodgings in one of the wealthiest houses in Argune, belonging to a man named Osric.  On the downside, however, they had to put up with their host during dinner.  Well, Kaitlynn and Marius did.  Arturos and Grunt were forced to stay in the servant halls and take their meals there.  Marius was originally meant to stay with them, but Kaitlynn objected.  She would rather have had all of them with her, but Osric would not allow a dog nor an orc child to sit in his fine dining hall and eat off his good tableware.  It turned out that being one of Nehame's companions did not come with many perks.  She was only able to convince her host to make one exception, as Marius was human, pleasing in appearance, and possessing good manners.  Kaitlynn did not feel comfortable being left alone, even if meant Grunt, a 12-year-old child, was forced to be almost completely on his own with people who despised him because of his race, so she agreed to the arrangements.  Everyone had a miserable time.

"I have to tell you again how exceedingly honored I am by your decision to take lodgings at my humble abode," he told her between mouthfuls of steak.  He had won mainly by being louder and more demanding than the others, to the point that she was afraid violence might erupt if she chose someone else.

"My family would be honored to meet you as well, in fact.  They are staying out at my plantation estate.  Too dangerous to go into town just for a whim, thanks to all the shades.  But if you would like to meet my wife and son, I'd be happy to take you.  It's only half a day's journey, no large trip at all, and I would have no fear of any danger with you by my side."

"No, thank you.  I'd rather go on and finish my quest as soon as possible."

"But of course.  I would not delay you.  The shades have caused so many problems as of late.  It's become dangerous to ship goods anywhere now.  The sooner it's dealt with, the better.

"Honestly, it's disgraceful, the state of the world these days," he ranted.  "Not to malign you, your holiness, but we wouldn't need you at all if the world hadn't fallen into such low states.  The young people especially--with the exception of yourself, mind--are all worthless layabouts.  They don't work, spend all their time and money on useless baubles, and then expect everyone else to pay for their mistakes.  It's disgusting!"  He banged the table for emphasis.  "Tomorrow, a group of them are going before the mayor to whine about the lack of jobs for them.  Bah!  There are plenty of jobs!  I'm always shorthanded at harvest.  Last year I lost grain in the field because I didn't have enough hands to bring it all in before the rain!"

"You don't have enough slaves?"

"I have enough for the rest of the year.  But harvest time is different.  If one farmer has crops that ripen before another's, it's common for the second to hire out some of his slaves to the first, and vice versa.  But more usually we must hire temporary help.  And other times, I need a new barn, or a roof repaired, or new equipment made.  I can't trust that kind of work to slaves!  You can only get ogres for fieldwork out here.  Those damn brutes aren't any good for complicated work like that, they're too stupid.  But the young today don't want _those_ kinds of jobs.  Honest, hard work?  No, they all want to be artisans, and get paid more for stitching flowers on dresses, or painting pictures to hang on walls, or for playing silly songs in taverns!  What good is that kind of work?  It doesn't produce bread, or beer, or homes, or weapons, or anything useful.  If their work was so valuable to customers, then they'd be able to charge higher fees.  But with so many of them, why should I be forced to charge more when I can find other workers willing to work for less?"

His dinner speech was one long litany of complaints.  It was a relief when the meal was over and she could plead exhaustion and an early start to avoid spending any more of the evening with him.  Instead, she spent it alone in her room (Marius was banished back to the servants' hall), reading through some of the books from Osric's personal library.

She did end up rising early, and shortly after dawn, they set out for the next temple.  Designated as the Sanctissimum on the map, neither Arturos nor Marius were familiar with its history.  Whether its history was unimportant, or erased, or if their education was lacking, they couldn't say.

Sanctissimum was in worse shape than the other ruins Kaitlynn had visited until now.  The roof was gone, as were most of the walls.  It wasn't much more than pillars, covered in ivy and moss, set in the middle of a grassy field.  In the distance was a shepherd with his flock.  It all looked very picturesque.

"It all feels too easy."  Marius was glancing around nervously.  They hadn't seen any shades yet that day. 

"You think there should be a boss fight before each of these?  I don't see why.  There weren't any shades waiting for us at the last two."

"Boss fight?"

"Someone's coming!"  Grunt pointed in the direction of Argune.  Riding hard towards them were two figures on horseback.

"I'm blaming you for this, Marius.  I want you to know that."

"Maybe they aren't hostile?"

Marius's suggestion was quickly proven false, as one figure readied a bow.  Kaitlynn raised the barrier around them all before the arrow could reach any of them.  It crashed into the ground several feet in front of them, never even reaching her barrier.

"Either they have poor aim, or that was meant as a warning."

"Any idea who they are?"

Arturos stepped forward.  "The one with the bow is a woman with red hair.  The other is a man with a golden symbol on his clothes.  I don't recognize it from here.  Neither are familiar to me."

"I don't recognize them, either."

Grunt stood up in the cart.  "I know them!  They were with Shen!"

"Shit."  For they were now close enough for Kaitlynn to recognize them.

Barreling down towards them like enraged furies were Roman and Rialla.

*** * ***

Kaitlynn's barrier stayed up as they readied themselves for a fight.  They didn't have time to turn the cart around to form a makeshift shield before the two reached them. 

Roman and Rialla did not rush in to attack immediately.  They slowed their horses to a stop and dismounted.  They both looked dirty and disheveled.  Neither wore armor.  Roman pulled out his sword and pointed it straight at Kaitlynn.

"Come out and face me, you coward!"

She didn't move.  "Why?"

In a rage he pounded on the barrier.  "You tricked Shen!  You deceived the Patriarch and made us outlaws!  And now you won't even come out and face me like a man?"

"I'm not a man.  I don't have to follow your bullshit rules.  And I didn't lie to anyone.  Unlike you, I told the truth, and the Patriarch decided to punish you accordingly.  If you have a problem with that, maybe don't take advantage of a puking drunk girl next time or lie about it so your girlfriend won't get mad at you for cheating."

Roman attacked the barrier with his sword, but it only struck against it uselessly.  In a flash, it disappeared mid-strike, sending him off balance.

Kaitlynn had only one command for her companions.  "Kill them."

Arturos and Grunt went after the two eagerly.  Grunt for revenge, and Arturos for the mere love of the fight.  Marius hesitated.  Anathema or not, they were noblemen, and he did not want to raise his hand against them.  He had no choice in the matter, however, for the two of them were both skilled warriors.  Both Kaitlynn and Arturos were focused on Roman, so he went after Rialla.

Kaitlynn attacked Roman recklessly, barely heeding any strikes he got in on her.  It took little effort or thought to heal herself, so as her numerous wounds stitched themselves closed, she launched herself at him again and again.  Arturos did not attack directly but used spells to disorient and confuse Roman.  Between the two of them, they were able to wear him down, until he started making fatal mistakes, and Kaitlynn finally got a solid hit in, right through his side.  He fell to his knees.

Marius and Grunt were not quite so successful.  Too close to use the bow, Rialla fought with a staff, and she was able to draw them away from the others.  While they eventually managed to corner her between the two of them, she was able to stun Grunt with a heavy blow.  It left Marius to fight her alone.  It was then that Kaitlynn managed to stab Roman.  Seeing him fall, Rialla screamed and tried to rush toward him, only to be hit from behind with the flat of Marius's blade.

She looked up at him with eyes full of hate.  Marius hesitated.  His mistress was stabbing Roman repeatedly; there was no chance of saving him.  And Grunt needed to be looked at.  And he truly didn't want to kill her.

"You need to run.  Hurry!"

He was afraid she'd try to fight, but after another look at Romans' form on the ground, she nodded.  He let her flee while he checked on Grunt.  The goblin was dazed, but otherwise alright.  Then he turned his attention to his mistress.

She was still stabbing Roman.  Both hands gripping her sword, she plunged it into his body, through the earth beneath it, pulled it straight out, and plunged it in again, over and over, an obscene rhythm accompanied by the sounds of liquid and gore.

"Mistress, please stop!"  He tried to pull her off the man.  "He's already dead!"

She looked at him blankly.  "No, he isn't.  He's still alive.  See?"

It was true.  Roman's eyes wandered wildly between the two of them, horrible sounds coming from his mouth.  Even his hands were twitching, desperately trying to grasp his dropped sword.  She had been aiming too low to hit his heart.

"This is too much, Mistress.  Please, just end it.  Death should be enough!"  She didn't respond.  "Grunt was injured in the fight.  He needs your healing.  Please, Mistress."

She still looked as if she would refuse, then suddenly, all the energy seemed to flow out of her, leaving her looking incredibly tired. 

"Fine."  Keeping her eyes on Marius, she stepped on Roman's neck and held it there until he died.

Grunt had recovered by the time she looked at him, but she used her magic on him anyway.  It didn't seem to bother her that Rialla had escaped, but Marius feared there would be a reckoning later.  Nothing else attacked them on the short walk to the ruins.  Stepping on the dais and having it light up felt almost anticlimactic. 

Kaitlynn summoned the feather in her hand.  Before, it had been a delicate and ethereal creation; now it was solid, like a real white feather, glowing with an inner light.

"Very impressive. I wonder if the last temple will add to it.  The final place on the map is the monastery known as World's End.  According to legend, it is where Nehame defeated Amaut a thousand years ago.  Unlike most of these others, it's not a forgotten ruin, but still in use."

"That could be a problem if we actually have to fight Amaut."  She glanced up at the sky.  "Anyway, we should probably be on our way.  Do you think we could make it to the next village before dark?"

"We're just leaving?"  Marius was kneeling by Roman's body.  "Shouldn't we bring him back into town?  He needs a burial!"

"Why?  Someone else will take care of it, eventually.  It'll be a huge hassle for us to deal with it."

"Anathema or not, it might be suspicious, leaving him out here without telling anyone," Arturos pointed out.  "Although a divine hero with the backing of the Patriarch need answer to no one."

"So, which do you think we should do, then?"

"It depends on you.  If you would rather reach World's End sooner, then leave him here.  Going back to Argune would likely delay us a day."

"Then we'll head straight for the next town," she said, and would hear no more of the matter.

*** * ***

Marius was unhappy.  The sight of his mistress as she plunged her sword into Roman's body remained burned into his mind.  There was no rage, no anger, not even a demented joy on her face as she did so, just a grim determination.  He didn't understand it.

A change seemed to have come over her as well, although it could have been his imagination.  She seemed more tired, more careworn, less interested in everything around her.  When he tried to talk to her about it, she only said she just "wanted this to be over with."

"Perhaps after all this is done, we could go somewhere to rest," he suggested, trying to inject an optimism he didn't feel into his voice.  "You'll have earned it after saving the world."

"Maybe."  They were camping on the side of the road that night.  Grunt was already asleep, while Arturos patrolled the perimeter.

"Mistress, perhaps...it's not tiredness.  You have been acting like this since that day at the Sanctissimum."  She didn't answer.  "Forgive me if I'm overstepping, Mistress, but I am worried about you."

"Are you?"  She stared into the dying fire.  Unsure of what to do or say, Marius fidgeted beside her.  Finally, she sighed.  "They keep coming back."

"They?"

"Shen.  Roman.  Rialla.  All of them.  It feels like every time I manage to pick myself up and start to move on with my life, they come back into my life, and it's like I have to start all over again.  Just hearing their names is enough to feel like I'm back at the beginning, with everyone hating me and yelling at me.  I'm tired of it.  I honestly don't care if they're alive or dead, I just want them to go away and never hear about them ever again!"

She went silent again, drawing her knees up and hugging them to her chest. 

"I don't think that will be possible, Mistress.  Even if you kill them, their families will still be around.  Are you going to get upset every time someone mentions the name of Alteus?"

"I'm not like this because I want to be.  What do you think I should about it?  Just get over it?"

"Why not?  Mistress, the Patriarch himself declared you to be divine hero.  You have the respect and praise of everyone in Isven.  Why are you so bothered by something so trivial?"

"Trivial?"

He flinched at her voice but continued regardless.  She was more willing to listen to advice than most masters.  "I mean, Mistress, that your feud with them is not so great as you imagine.  I say this for your own benefit because I'm worried for you.  If you continue to hold onto your anger, it will surely get you into trouble.  You should visit a priest; surely he would be able to help you."

"It was a priest that called me a liar and a whore and cut my hair.  Even after that, I went to another for help, and he threw me out of the church.  Even if I went to one now, he'd probably think I brought it all on myself.  I'm not going to a priest."

Silence fell again.  That had been as far as he'd been willing to push.  As he stood up, Kaitlynn spoke to him again.

"What about you?"

"Mistress?"

She stood up to face him.  "What happened between me and Roman.  What do you think about it?  Did I bring it all on myself?"

"Mistress, I--" he looked down, as if the way out of this question was written in the dirt.  "I do not think you are wicked Mistress.  It was--a mistake."

"A mistake?"

"Yes, Mistress.  Drinking to excess.  Going off alone with a strange man.  I do not think you intended to seduce him, but--"

"Seduce him?!  As if I would ever do that!"

"I wasn't accusing you, Mistress."

"Then why even bring it up, huh?  You think I deserved it for getting drunk, don't you?  You're just like everyone else!"

"No, not deserved, but when you allow yourself to get so drunk--"

She punched him.  He could have dodged it, but he didn't. 

"You do blame me.  Don't deny it!  I was too out of it to know what was going on or what I was doing, but it's all my fault!  Not the guy sober enough to know better!"

"He's also to blame, but--"

"But what?"  She stepped in close, bringing her face right up to his.  "His crime isn't as important as mine, is it?  Or you'd have focused on him first."  She shoved him.  "Nothing to say to that?  You're disgusting.  Get out of my sight."

There wasn't anywhere to go, out in the open.  He hid in his tent.  Outside, he could hear her footsteps stomping away from the tents and the fire.  Would she be coming back?  If only he had kept his mouth shut.

Kaitlynn wasn't stomping off into the woods forever, but she needed both to get away, and to work off some of her anger.  She shouldn't have asked him; she knew it was a bad idea even before she opened her mouth.  But she needed to know.  Once the idea popped into her head, the uncertainty would have eaten away at her otherwise.  Whether she asked or kept quiet, she would have been miserable anyway, so she preferred to be miserable from knowledge instead of ignorance.

"Where are you going?"  Arturos came trotting up to her.

She felt miserable and was in the mood to spread it around.  "What happened between me and Roman.  Who do you think is at fault?"

"That question is a trap.  Even if I give you the answer you want, you won't believe it's sincere."

"You think it's my fault, too?  That if I'd behaved differently, it would never have happened?"

"If you had behaved differently, then yes, the outcome might have been different.  If Marius had the spine to stand up for himself, he might be a free man today, or he might be dead in a ditch.  If Giraunt had fled rather than hide, he and his sisters might be free, or they might have died with their parents.  If I had realized my alpha was not just a fool, but dishonest, I might rule my people, or I might still have lost the challenge and ended up with you.  Mights and maybes are useless after the fact.  The only thing to do is accept your own hand in your fate and face the future."  He walked by her, brushing his body against her as he walked back to the camp.  "Come.  It's late.  You should sleep."

Feeling calmer, she followed him.  She wasn't alright, not yet, but his words had given her a measure of relief, until they reached the camp.  As Arturos settled down by the fire, the flickering light reflected off his collar.  She stopped, wanting to speak, but never found the words, or even what idea she thought she needed to express.  Without ever finding the answer, she crawled inside her tent.

 

*** * ***

The monastery known as World's End did not get its name from being the battleground between Nehame and Amaut, but because it was situated on a cliff overlooking the sea.  It was here that Isven was connected to the ocean, and a mile below the cathedral, down at the water's edge, was a prosperous port town.  They didn't go in; there was no need.  Supplies they still had.  There was no one in town they needed to see, nowhere to visit.

The monks at World's End received them all, even Arturos and Grunt, without comment.  Word had been sent ahead by the Patriarch.  There was no mass of crowds to greet them, no well-wishers praying for their success.  The monastery was quiet, and they were treated as ordinary guests.  It wasn't quite what Kaitlynn expected, and she told as much to the Abbott.

"If you want crowds of admirers to lay palms at your feet, you are welcome to walk into town.  This is a sacred and solemn place, where the last chains preventing Amaut from devouring the world are kept.  Your ego has no place here."

"I wasn't complaining; it's just odd, after everywhere else."

"We have not been misled by the temptations and distractions of the physical world.  Fame has no meaning to us.  Our minds are turned to greater things."

"Yes, yes, anyway, where is the stone dais?  I'd like to get this over with as soon as possible."

"The seal at World's End is in an underground chamber we keep locked and sealed by magic.  It can only be opened by a special ritual on the night of a full moon.  The next full moon is three nights from now.  You must be patient and wait.  You are free to stay here if you like, and make use of the church and the grounds, so long as you do not disturb my brothers in their holy offices."  He led them to their rooms (unused monk cells, actually) and left them to do as they pleased.

"Should we go into town?"  Marius asked.  His mistress had been avoiding speaking to him more than necessary since that night in the woods.  He was hoping a walk among people might cheer her up.

"You can go in if you like.  I'm staying here until the chamber is open." 

He couldn't go into town without her, not without a pass giving him permission to do so, and he was afraid to ask for one.  Besides, he had no reason to go alone.

Kaitlynn stayed in her cell for most of the first day.  The monastery had a library, but it was all very dense texts on religion, and she fell asleep trying to read one.  She felt restless, but didn't want to go anywhere, or do anything, or see anyone.  Eventually, she gave up trying to stay in her cell and went wandering around.

Giraunt was up on the walkways on the outer walls, watching the water.

"I've never seen the ocean before," he told as she joined him.

"Really?  I guess most of Isven is landlocked, after all."

"My people originally came from the south, across the ocean.  At least, that's what the stories said." 

"Do you know why you came north?"

"There was a curse, I think.  The land dried up, and everyone grew sick.  The priests said it was because someone destroyed a sacred plant, I think.  That's why we have to be careful when foraging and hunting, not to take everything.  Anyway, we had to leave and find someplace else to live.  The people here welcomed us and gave us land in the east and asked us to protect them from enemies. But after we defeated their enemies, they changed their minds and stole the land back."

"That was pretty terrible of them."

He nodded.  "The adults always said that humans are liars and backstabbers, and you can't trust them."

"They aren't wrong."

"What about you?"

She looked down at him.  "What do you think?"

"I think you're different.  You're not like other humans at all."

"That's nice of you to say, but you've only known me a few months.  I'd hold off on judgement until you've known me for at least a year."

Nothing more was said, but neither felt the need to say anything.  They spent the rest of the day watching the sea, until the sun went down.

 

*** * ***

The days until the full moon passed slowly for Kaitlynn and her companions.  For the monks in the monastery, it was a flurry of activity, although all of it was kept hidden from their guests.

The Abbott, Father Aristeo, had received a letter from the Patriarch, but hidden within and between the lines there had been a warning.  This young hero must be stopped, if possible.  Poison, or an assassin's blade in the night as she slept, would have been easy, but whoever chose those methods would surely be caught.  Father Aristeo was too much a coward to sacrifice himself, even for the sake of the world, but he told himself he simply loathed to take a life with his own hands, especially in such a cowardly and underhanded way, and looked for alternatives.

The underground chamber was sealed, but with an ordinary key.  There was no need for a ritual under a full moon to unlock it.  In the weeks since receiving the Patriarch's letter, he had been scouring the library's hidden archives, ancient texts from the old Magi, and he found a possible solution:  a spell to summon one of Amaut's children as a guardian.  It was perfect.  If it succeeded, one could simply say Nehame perished while fighting Amaut himself.

On the second day, an unexpected visitor arrived, adding a new complication.  It took some doing to keep their new arrival a secret from their other guests, but they managed.  Soon, all that was left to do was wait.

 

The monks wouldn't let anyone watch them perform the ritual to unlock the chamber.  Kaitlynn thought it was suspicious, but Arturos assured her that secrecy was often a necessary component to many rituals and spells.

"Why?" she asked.  "How would having outsiders watch affect anything?"

"Frequently the more elaborate rituals require strange movements and calls.  It would be humiliating to be seen by others at such a time, and the embarrassment could easily prevent a practitioner from being able to complete the spell properly."

"Wait, really?  That's why it has to be a secret?  So you don't get embarrassed?"

"Yes, truly.  Even looking a fellow member of the circle in the eye during the ritual can cause intense embarrassment.  That's why sorcerers usually wear robes with hoods to cover their faces."  He looked up at her with such an expression of innocence that she instantly disbelieved his story.  On the other hand, it sounded like something that could be real.  At least, she knew she'd felt like an idiot the one time she tried to cast spells herself, back in her home world.

They were waiting together outside Kaitlynn's cell.  Giraunt was left asleep in his bed, but the rest would enter the chamber as soon as the ritual was done.  A few minutes after midnight, one of the monks came to them to lead them all to the chamber.  They could not say if there would be a fight, but Kaitlynn and Marius had their armor and weapons ready, just in case. 

Just as they turned around a corner at the end of the hall, the door to Giraunt's cell opened.  He hadn't wanted to be left behind, so he stayed up, listening at the door.  Quietly he crept behind them, hiding around corners or behind pillars as they made their way through the monastery, to a heavy wooden door.  The monk pulled it open, the creak of the hinges filling the room.

"The chamber lies at the base of the stairs," the monk told them.  He bowed towards them and stepped back out of the way.  Giraunt, peering around the corner, watched as his companions filed down the staircase.  Once they had made it some distance down the staircase, the monk left out a door to Giraunt's right.  He was about to follow down the staircase when a new figure stepped in.  His heart skipped a beat when he recognized the red-haired woman who came into the room.  She had turned towards the staircase and had her foot on the first step when Giraunt jumped out from his hiding spot, dagger drawn.

She was surprised, but only for a moment.  Without a word, she readied her staff and met his attack.

 

*** * ***

The chamber was already lit before they entered.  There were torches lined on the walls and mounted on the columns spread throughout the room.  The ceiling was oppressively low.  Numerous columns spread throughout broke up the view and hid the true size of the chamber, giving it a claustrophobic feeling. 

The many columns also hid the beast that lurked within.  It lunged out at them suddenly in a fury of snapping teeth and sharp claws, grazing Marius's arm.  Kaitlynn healed him as they all leaped away from the beast.  It was huge, the size of a horse, massive in build, and yet despite its size it dodged around the many columns with better agility than she could manage.  It was hard to judge its full appearance, but she could see a long snout protruding from a mane of matted hair, powerful paws, and a long swishing tail.  She'd never seen such a beast, she knew she hadn't, and yet she felt as if she knew it.  Its name was on the tip of her tongue.

Arturos raced past the two.  "Wake up!  I'll distract it!  You attack from behind!" 

Snapping out of her reverie, she and Marius ran in the opposite direction, circling around the beast to reach its blind spot.  Frequently it would lunge for Arturos, but she was able to pull it back, as if tugging on an invisible leash:  her new ability gained from the last temple.  She couldn't pull the monster far, and doing so alerted its attention to her, so they would have to distract it and circle around it once more.  Her barrier was harder to use; it reacted to stone walls and columns the same way it did to people and shades, and she didn't want to accidentally bring the ceiling down.

It was a long and tedious battle.  The beast's hide was thick and hard to cut to cut or pierce with a blade, and neither Kaitlynn nor Marius could easily get close enough to strike at a vital spot.  By the time it finally went down, they were all exhausted and out of breath.

"Well," Marius panted, "at least...it was only...one."

"Marius...shut...the hell...up.  You'll jinx us."

"Indeed," Arturos agreed as he limped towards Kaitlynn.  She healed him, not noticing Marius move towards the stairwell until he called out to her.

"Mistress!  Something's coming down the stairs!"

They all readied themselves for a fight, but what came down was not an enemy, but Grunt's broken body, which collapsed in a heap at the foot of the stairs.

Arturos and Marius might have said something.  She couldn't hear it.  They might have rushed towards the boy's body out of some vain hope he had survived the fall.  She didn't see it.  The only thing in her vision were Grunt's lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling.  What had she been thinking, to bring a child with her?  To make him follow her into the woods, through lands infested with shades, to drag him into her own personal feud just so she could have someone else on her side--did she really think she could keep him safe through all that?

Someone else was coming down the stairs.  Kaitlynn barely took any notice of it, until the intruder launched themselves directly at her.  Dazed with shock and grief, she didn't even think to bring up her barrier and took the blow full on.  Knocked to the ground, she stared up at the enraged face of Rialla Guilleche.

Finally coming to her senses, Kaitlynn rolled out of the way as the woman's staff smashed the ground beside her, cracking the floor.  If she hadn't moved, that would have been her head.  Marius followed with an attack, giving her enough time to get up.

"You think you're all heroes, do you?"  Rialla shouted at them as she fought.  "The abbot knows I'm here!  He promised me amnesty if I killed you all!  Do you get it!  Even the church wants you dead!  You're not Nehame!  You're all fakes!"

Rialla was a better fighter than either of them, but she was outnumbered, and as an ordinary human, she had no way to defend herself against Kaitlynn's magical powers.  With those powers she slammed Rialla's head into a nearby pillar.  After a few more blows, Rialla staggered and fell to her knees.  Kaitlynn leapt on her.

"Quick, help me tie her up!"

Rialla writhed beneath her.  "Just kill me, you bitch!  After all you've done, why show mercy now?"

"This isn't mercy," she said, her knee on the woman's back.  "Arturos, where are you?"

"Over here," he said as he came over.  Behind him she could see Grunt's body, now arranged neatly on the floor.  "What do you intend to do with her?"

"She thinks I'm a fake, so first I'm going to prove otherwise."

"But what did she mean about the Abbott?  Why would he let her in to kill us?"

"I mean just what I said, boy!"  Rialla spat at Marius.  "He had orders from the Patriarch himself!  You tricked him and forced him to accept you publicly, but you're nothing but a fraud!  A false prophet!"

Marius looked worriedly at Kaitlynn, but she appeared unmoved.  "Come on," she said, gesturing for him to bring Rialla.

In the center of the chamber was a large stone dais, just like the ones found in churches.  Sitting on top was an altar, covered in carvings. 

"So," Kaitlynn said, "you think I'm a fake, huh?"  She stepped up onto the dais and watched the stone light up.  Perhaps because the room was gloomy instead of out in the open, the light seemed much brighter than before.

No, it didn't just seem brighter, it was brighter.  The stone wasn't just lit from within, light was streaming out of it, up the altar, coming together on top until it coalesced into a definite, solid form:  a large balance scale.

The light slowly faded, leaving the scale behind.

Kaitlynn turned around.  Holding out her palm, she summoned the feather.  This time, the feather wasn't just an image of light, but it became a real physical thing that she could hold in her hand.  It felt very heavy to her.  As if it held the weight of the world, in fact.

She looked down at Rialla, kneeling on the floor.  "Still think I'm a fake?"

Shaking her head, Rialla tried to back away, but Marius's grip on her arm held fast.  "No," she cried, "I won't believe it!  It's a trick!  I'll never believe anything you say!"

"That's too bad."

"What did you gain from this one?" Arturos asked.

"Nothing.  This is the end."  She caressed the balance scale.  Her voice sounded distant and distracted.  "Our Father Helonius told me Nehame's real purpose on his return was to judge the world, not defeat Amaut.  He thought I would judge against the world, and doom everyone."

"And if you judged in the world's favor?  Would the world continue on, or would we simply be allowed into paradise?"

"I don't know.  I didn't think to ask at the time."

"How are you supposed to judge the entire world?"  It was Marius who asked.

"With this."  She placed the feather on side of the scale.  The side holding the feather dropped, hitting the altar with a loud clang that echoed through the room.  "On one end, Nehame's symbol.  On the other, someone's heart."

"Are you sure, Mistress?  How do you know?"

"I could say I just know the same way I know how to heal or use the barrier, but there's also all carvings on the altar.  They show someone's heart being cut out and weighed against a feather.  Someone has to sacrifice themselves for the rest of the world.  If they pass the test, then hooray, I guess.  If not...."

"Wh-who must be the sacrifice?"

"Good question."  She stepped off the dais to crouch in front of Rialla.  "How about you?"

"It has to be a willing sacrifice," Arturos called out behind her.  "Otherwise the magic will fail."

"Are you volunteering?  I don't really care who it is, to be honest.  You want to die so much, go ahead."  There was no response.  Turning back to Rialla, she continued, "well?  You want to be a hero, don't you?  Isn't that what made you go on a journey with your deadbeat boyfriend in the first place?"

"You're the divine hero, aren't you?  You be the one to die!"

"This isn't my world.  I can't represent it because I'm not really a part of it.  It'll have to be you, unless you want me to drag down one of the monks upstairs.  But you're dead anyway, so why not give your life some meaning before the end?"

"Are you hoping I'll beg for my life?  Would it bring you joy to watch me cry and scream?  I won't give you the satisfaction.  Go ahead and do it, then!  You're going to kill me anyway, just get it over with!"

"Gladly."  She ordered Marius to hold her down on the floor, while she straddled the woman.

"Mistress, isn't there another way?  One that doesn't involve killing?"

"Everything requires sacrifice.  Isn't that right, Arturos?  That's the kind of thing you'd say, isn't it?  Anyway, hand me a dagger.  Don't worry, lady, this'll be quick.  Back home the Aztecs used to sacrifice people by the thousands by ripping out their hearts.  If you go up through the diaphragm, you can get it done in like a minute or so."

Kaitlynn was not an Aztec priest, nor a surgeon, nor a butcher, nor even an experienced murderer.  It took her far more than a minute, but finally, with arms covered in gore, she held up the heart in triumph and relief. 

She carried the heart up to the dais and, while holding the balance with both sides equal, placed it on the scale.  The scales wobbled from side to side, but soon began to tip--in favor of the heart.  In a panic she dashed the balance scale from the altar, sending everything flying.

"What's wrong?" Arturos asked mildly.  Beside him, Marius stood ashen faced.

Kaitlynn let out a noise between a laugh and a sob.  "He was right.  Everyone has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.  This is the end."  She sat down and leaned against the altar.  She tried to hug her knees, but her arms were still bloody.

"Why?" Marius asked.  "Things aren't perfect, but it can't be that bad!"

"It’s not?  The only person in this world who’s treated me fair when he didn’t have to was a Goddamned slave trader.  Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?"

He didn’t.  He really didn’t.

"Why are you so upset?" Unlike them, Arturos sounded unconcerned.  "You were warned this would be the outcome.  You have had plenty of time to accept it."

He had a point.  She thought she had been ready.  To be more accurate, she thought she hadn't cared.  "It doesn't bother you?  You're a part of this world, too, you know."

"In order to join my tribe, as a new member or as an adult, one must undergo a trial.  A group of novices who wish to join must all draw straws.  Whoever draws the shortest straw will be killed and cooked into a meal that is fed to the rest.  It is the act of this taboo that grants us our ability to change our forms into beasts.  We all enter into the ritual knowing that any one of us could be chosen, and it is a feeling that we carry with us forever.  Sometimes, you are the one chosen.  Sometimes, it is another.  Today, it is everyone.  This is simply our fate."  He began to walk towards the exit.

"Where are you going?"

"I would like to spend my last moments gazing on the world.  I should have a good view of the end from the walls.  Do your duty, Master.  It has been an interesting time travelling with you."  Without a second glance back, he headed up the stairs.

Marius came to Kaitlynn's side. 

"I don't understand," he said.  "This can't be real.  There must be some mistake.  You were supposed to save everyone."

"Was I?"  Her voice sounded quiet and distracted, as if her mind was far away.  "How could I be a hero?  Aren't heroes supposed to do good deeds?  I don't think I've done one truly decent thing since coming to this world."

"Mistress, that isn't true!  You've saved people from shades countless times!"

"For money.  It was a way to live, nothing more."

"What about us?  Grunt and Arturos and I--you've always been exceedingly kind and gracious to us."

"You're property.  Is it so strange I'd take good care of my things?  If I really cared about you, why didn't I take your collars off?  Why didn't I find an orc tribe willing to take Grunt in, instead of dragging him all around human cities where he'd be despised?  Everything I've done has been only for myself."  She shifted position, still unsure of what to do with her hands.  "'Lord, when did we see you hungry and not feed you, see you thirsty and not give you something to drink, see you naked and not give you clothes?'  Or something like that.  I haven't helped anyone at all.  And now it's too late."

"Mistress, you don't have to do this.  We could just walk away."

"And go where?  The world is overrun with shades.  They aren't going to go away.  You want everyone to continue to suffer from those monsters?"

"It's better than dying."

"Is it?"  She sounded skeptical.  "Maybe, but I can't stand the thought of leaving something undone."

"Please, Mistress, let's just leave this and go!"  Bloody as it was, he grabbed her hand and tried to drag her away.  She stayed seated.

"Why?  What would be the point?  What would I be living for?"  She turned to look at him at last.  "What do you live for?"

"I live to serve you, of course."

"That's it?  Nothing else?  Nothing for yourself?"  She let out a short laugh.  "God, you're just as broken as I am."  She stood up and started gathering the balance scale, feather, and heart.

"If you want to run away, you can," she said.  "I'll even wait and give you a head start, if you'd like."

"I'll stay here.  My place is with you, Mistress."

She shrugged and put the feather and the heart back on the scales.  Together, they watched the heart drop, and waited for Amaut to devour the world.

Was the end quick?  Or slow?  Were people's last moments filled with fear, pain, and despair, or did it catch them unawares?  Whatever the answer, the end did come, and one thing was certain:  that it was no more, and no less, than what was deserved.


End file.
